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GHETTO TRAGEDIES 


I 









Ghetto Tragedies 


BY 


I. ZA 


ZANGWILL 


AUTHOR OF “ CHILDREN OF THE GHETTO,” 
* * THE KING OF SCHNORRERS, ’ ’ ETC. 


Philadelphia 


The Jewish Publication Society of America 





Copyright, 1895, 

By I. ZANGWILL 


Gift 

PilfcllBhOt 

KAI? 25 19H 










Norfoooti $rf8S 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick k Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


The “Ghetto Tragedies” collected in a little vol¬ 
ume in 1893 have been so submerged in the present 
collection that I have relegated the original name 
to the sub-title. “ Satan Mekatrig ” was written in 
1889, “ Bethulah ” this year. Anyone who should 
wish to measure the progress or decay of my imagi¬ 
nation during the ten years has therefore materials 
to hand. “ Noah’s Ark ” stands on the firmer Ara¬ 
rat of history, my invention being confined to the 
figure of Peloni (the Hebrew for “nobody”). The 
other stories have also a basis in life. But neither in 
pathos nor heroic stimulation can they vie with the 
literal tragedy with which the whole book is in a 
sense involved. Mrs. N. S. Joseph, the great-hearted 
lady to whom “ Ghetto Tragedies ” was inscribed, 
herself walked in darkness, yet was not dismayed: in 
the prime of life she went down into the valley of 
the shadow, with no word save of consideration for 
others. I trust the new stories would not have been 
disapproved by my friend, to whose memory they 
must now, alas ! be dedicated. 

I. Z. 


October, 1899. 


v 




CONTENTS 


i 

v PAGE 

“They that Walk in Darkness” . . . . i 

II 

Transitional.41 

III 

Noah’s Ark.79 


IV 

The Land of Promise.127 

V 

To Die in Jerusalem. 159 

VI 

Bethulah.185 

VII 

The Keeper of Conscience.249 

VIII 

Satan Mekatrig.345 

vii 





CONTENTS 


viii 


IX 

PAGE 

Diary of a Meshumad. 403 


X 


Incurable 


457 


XI 


The Sabbath-breaker . 


479 



THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 



I 


“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS” 

I 

It was not till she had fasted every Monday and 
Thursday for a twelvemonth, that Zillah’s long 
yearning for a child was gratified. She gave birth 
— O more than fair-dealing God ! — to a boy. 

Jossel, who had years ago abandoned the hope 
of an heir to pray for his soul, was as delighted as 
he was astonished. His wife had kept him in igno¬ 
rance of the fasts by which she was appealing to 
Heaven ; and when of a Monday or Thursday even¬ 
ing on his return from his boot factory in Bethnal 
Green, he had sat down to his dinner in Dalston, 
no suspicion had crossed his mind that it was Zillah’s 
breakfast. He himself was a prosaic person, in¬ 
capable of imagining such spontaneities of religion, 
though he kept every fast which it behoves an ortho¬ 
dox Jew to endure who makes no speciality of saint¬ 
hood. There was a touch of the fantastic in Zillah’s 
character which he had only appreciated in its mani¬ 
festation as girlish liveliness, and which Zillah knew 
would find no response from him in its religious 
expression. 


1 


2 


THE Y THA T WALK IN DARKNESS " 


Not that her spiritual innovations were original 
inventions. From some pious old crone, after whom 
(as she could read Hebrew) a cluster of neighbouring 
dames repeated what they could catch of the New 
Year prayers in the women’s synagogue, Zillah had 
learnt that certain holy men were accustomed to 
afflict their souls on Mondays and Thursdays. From 
her unsuspecting husband himself she had further 
elicited that these days were marked out from the 
ordinary, even for the man of the world, by a special 
prayer dubbed “ the long ‘ He being merciful.’ ” 
Surely on Mondays and Thursdays,, then, He would 
indeed be merciful. To make sure of His good-will 
she continued to be unmerciful to herself long after 
it became certain that her prayer had been granted. 

II 

Both Zillah and Jossel lived in happy ignorance of 
most things, especially of their ignorance. The man¬ 
ufacture of boots and all that appertained thereto, the 
synagogue and religion, misunderstood reminiscences 
of early days in Russia, the doings and misdoings of 
a petty social circle, and such particular narrowness 
with general muddle as is produced by stumbling 
through a Sabbath paper and a Sunday paper: these 
were the main items in their intellectual inventory. 
Separate Zillah from her husband and she became 
even poorer, for she could not read at all. 


“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


3 


Yet they prospered. The pavements of the East 
End resounded with their hob-nailed boots, and even 
in many a West End drawing-room their patent- 
leather shoes creaked. But they themselves had no 
wish to stand in such shoes; the dingy perspectives 
of Dalston villadom limited their ambition, already 
sufficiently gratified by migration from Whitechapel. 
The profits went to enlarge their factory and to buy 
houses, a favourite form of investment in their set. 
Zillah could cook fish to perfection, both fried and 
stewed, and the latter variety both sweet and sour. 
Nothing, in fine, had been wanting to their happi¬ 
ness— save a son, heir, and mourner. 

When he came at last, little that religion or su¬ 
perstition could do for him was left undone. An 
amulet on the bedpost scared off Lilith, Adam’s 
first wife, who, perhaps because she missed being 
the mother of the human race, hankers after babes 
and sucklings. The initiation into the Abrahamic 
covenant was graced by a pious godfather with 
pendent ear-locks, and in the ceremony of the Re¬ 
demption of the First-Born the five silver shekels 
to the priest were supplemented by golden sover¬ 
eigns for the poor. Nor, though Zillah spoke the 
passable English of her circle, did she fail to rock 
her Brum’s cradle to the old “Yiddish” nursery- 

4 

songs : — 

“Sleep, my birdie, shut your eyes, 

0 sleep, my little one; 


4 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


Too soon from cradle you’ll arise 
To work that must be done. 

“ Almonds and raisins you shall sell, 

And holy scrolls shall write; 

So sleep, dear child, sleep sound and well, 

Your future beckons bright. 

“ Brum shall learn of ancient days, 

And love good folk of this; 

So sleep, dear babe, your mother prays, 

And God will send you bliss.” 

Alas, that with all this, Brum should have grown 
up a weakling, sickly and anaemic, with a look that 
in the child of poorer parents would have said star¬ 
vation. 


Ill 

Yet through all the vicissitudes of his infantile 
career, Zillah’s faith in his survival never faltered. 
He was emphatically a child from Heaven, and 
Providence would surely not fly in its own face. 
Jossel, not being aware of this, had a burden of 
perpetual solicitude, which Zillah often itched to 
lighten. Only, not having done so at first, she 
found it more and more difficult to confess her ne¬ 
gotiation with the celestial powers. She went as 
near as she dared. 

“If the Highest One has sent us a son after so 
many years,” she said in the “ Yiddish ” which was 




“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


6 


still natural to her for intimate domestic discussion, 
“ He will not take him away again.” 

“As well say,” Jossel replied gloomily, “that be¬ 
cause He has sent us luck and blessing after all 
these years, He may not take away our prosperity.” 

“ Hush ! don’t beshrew the child ! ” And Zillah 
spat out carefully. She was tremulously afraid of 
words of ill-omen and of the Evil Eye, against which, 
she felt vaguely, even Heaven’s protection was not 
potent. Secretly she became more and more con¬ 
vinced that some woman, envious of all this “ luck and 
blessing,” was withering Brum with her Evil Eye. 
And certainly the poor child was peaking and pining 
away. “ Marasmus,” a physician had once mur¬ 
mured, wondering that so well dressed a child should 
appear so ill nourished. “Take him to the seaside 
often, and feed him well,” was the universal cry of 
the doctors; and so Zillah often deserted her hus¬ 
band for a kosher boarding-house at Brighton 
or Ramsgate, where the food was voluminous, and 
where Brum wrote schoolboy verses to the strange, 
fascinating sea. 

For there were compensations in the premature 
flowering of his intellect. Even other mothers grad¬ 
ually came round to admitting he was a prodigy. 
The black eyes seemed to burn in the white face as 
they looked out on the palpitating universe, or de¬ 
voured every and any scrap of print! A pity they 
had so soon to be dulled behind spectacles. But 


6 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


Zillah found consolation in the thought that the 
glasses would go well with the high black waistcoat 
and white tie of the British Rabbi. He had been 
given to her by Heaven, and to Heaven must be 
returned. Besides, that might divert it from any 
more sinister methods of taking him back. 

In his twelfth year Brum began to have more 
trouble with his eyes, and renewed his early acquain¬ 
tance with the drab ante-rooms of eye hospitals that 
led, at the long-expected ting-ting of the doctor’s 
bell, into a delectable chamber of quaint instruments. 
But it was not till he was on the point of Bar-Mitzvah 
(confirmation at thirteen) that the blow fell. Un¬ 
warned explicitly by any physician, Brum went blind. 

“ Oh, mother,” was his first anguished cry, “ I 
shall never be able to read again.” 

IV 

The prepared festivities added ironic complications 
to the horror. After Brum should have read in the 
Law from the synagogue platform, there was to have 
been a reception at the house. Brum himself had 
written out the invitations with conscious grammar. 
“ Present their compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Solomon 
and shall be glad to see them ” (not you , as was the 
fashion of their set). It was after writing out so 
many notes in a fine schoolboy hand, that Brum be¬ 
gan to be conscious of thickening blurs and dancing 


THEY THAT WALK IN' DARKNESS 


7 


specks and colours. Now that the blind boy was 
crouching in hopeless misery by the glowing fire, 
where he had so often recklessly pored over books 
in the delicious dusk, there was no one handy to 
write out the countermands. As yet the wretched 
parents had kept the catastrophe secret, as though 
it reflected on themselves. And by every post the 
Confirmation presents came pouring in. 

Brum refused even to feel these shining objects. 
He had hoped to have a majority of books, but now 
the preponderance of watches, rings, and penknives, 
left him apathetic. To his parents each present 
brought a fresh feeling of dishonesty. 

“ We must let them know,” they kept saying. 
But the tiny difficulty of writing to so many pre¬ 
vented action. 

“ Perhaps he’ll be all right by Sabbath,” Zillah 
persisted frenziedly. She clung to the faith that this 
was but a cloud : for that the glory of the Confirma¬ 
tion of a future Rabbi could be so dimmed would 
argue an incomprehensible Providence. Brum’s per¬ 
formance was to be so splendid — he was to recite 
not only his own portion of the Law but the entire 
Sabbath Sedrah (section). 

“He will never be all right,” said Jossel, who, in 
the utter breakdown of Zillah, had for the first time 
made the round of the doctors with Brum. “ None 
of the physicians, not even the most expensive, hold 
out any hope. And the dearest of all said the case 


8 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


puzzled him. It was like the blindness that often 
breaks out in Russia after the great fasts, and spe¬ 
cially affects delicate children.” 

“Yes, I remember,” said Zillah; “but that was 
only among the Christians.” 

“We have so many Christian customs nowadays,” 
said Jossel grimly; and he thought of the pestilent 
heretic in his own synagogue who advocated that 
ladies should be added to the choir. 

“ Then what shall we do about the people ? ” 
moaned Zillah, wringing her hands in temporary 
discouragement. 

“ You can advertise in the Jewish papers,” came 
suddenly from the brooding Brum. He had a flash 
of pleasure in the thought of composing something 
that would be published. 

“Yes, then everybody will read it on the Friday,” 
said Jossel eagerly. 

Then Brum remembered that he would not be 
among the readers, and despair reconquered him. 
But Zillah was shaking her head. 

“Yes, but if we tell people not to come, and 
then when Brum opens his eyes on the Sabbath 
morning, he can see to read the Sedrak — ” 

“ But I don’t want to see to read the Sedrak ,” 
said the boy petulantly ; “ I know it all by heart.” 

‘ My blessed boy ! ” cried Zillah. 

“There’s nothing wonderful,” said the boy; “even 
if you read the scroll, there are no vowels nor musical 
signs.” 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


9 


“ But do you feel strong enough to do it all? ” said 
the father anxiously. 

“ God will give him strength,” put in the mother. 
“And he will make his speech, too, won’t you, my 
Brum ? ” 

The blind face kindled. Yes, he would give his 
learned address. He had saved his father the ex¬ 
pense of hiring one, and had departed in original 
rhetorical ways from the conventional methods of 
expressing filial gratitude to the parents who had 
brought him to manhood. And was this elo¬ 
quence to remain entombed in his own breast? 

His courageous resolution lightened the gloom. 
His parents opened parcels they had not had the 
heart to touch. They brought him his new suit, 
they placed the high hat of manhood on his head, 
and told him how fine and tall he looked; they 
wrapped the new silk praying-shawl round his 
shoulders. 

“ Are the stripes blue or black ? ” he asked. 

“Blue — a beautiful blue,” said Jossel, striving to 
steady his voice. 

“It feels very nice,” said Brum, smoothing the 
silk wistfully. “Yes, I can almost feel the blue.” 

Later on, when his father, a little brightened, had 
gone off to the exigent boot factory, Brum even 
asked to see the presents. The blind retain these 
visual phrases. 

Zillah described them to him one by one as he 


10 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS ” 


handled them. When it came to the books it 
dawned on her that she could not tell him the 
titles. 

“They have such beautiful pictures,” she gushed 
evasively. 

The boy burst into tears. 

“Yes, but I shall never be able to read them,” he 
sobbed. 

“ Yes, you will.” 

“ No, I won’t.” 

“Then I’ll read them to you,” she cried, with 
sudden resolution. 

“ But you can’t read.” 

“ I can learn.” 

“ But you will be so long. I ought to have taught 
you myself. And now it is too late! ” 

V 

In order to insure perfection, and prevent stage 
fright, so to speak, it had been arranged that Brum 
should rehearse his reading of the Sedrak on Fri¬ 
day in the synagogue itself, at an hour when it was 
free from worshippers. This rehearsal, his mother 
thought, was now all the more necessary to screw up 
Brum’s confidence, but the father argued that as all 
places were now alike to the blind boy, the prom¬ 
inence of a public platform and a large staring 
audience could no longer unnerve him. 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


11 


“ But he will feel them there ! ” Zillah protested. 

“But since they are not there on the Friday—-? ” 

“ All the more reason. Since he cannot see that 
they are not there, he can fancy they are there. On 
Saturday he will be quite used to them.” 

But when Jossel, yielding, brought Brum to the 
synagogue appointment, the fusty old Beadle who 
was faithfully in attendance held up his hands in 
holy and secular horror at the blasphemy and the 
blindness respectively. 

“A blind man may not read the Law to the con¬ 
gregation ! ” he explained. 

“ No ? ” said Jossel. 

“ Why not ? ” asked Brum sharply. 

“ Because it stands that the Law shall be read. 
And a blind man cannot read. He can only recite.” 

“ But I know every word of it,” protested Brum. 

The Beadle shook his head. “ But suppose you 
make a mistake! Shall the congregation hear a 
word or a syllable that God did not write ? It would 
be playing into Satan’s hands.” 

“ I shall say every word as God wrote it. Give 
me a trial.” 

But the fusty Beadle’s piety was invincible. He was 
highly sympathetic toward the human affliction, but 
he refused to open the Ark and produce the Scroll. 

“I’ll let the Chazan (cantor) know he must read 
to-morrow, as usual,” he said conclusively. 


12 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


Jossel went home, sighing, but silenced. Zillah 
however, was not so easily subdued. “ But my Brum 
will read it as truly as an angel! ” she cried, pressing 
the boy’s head to her breast. “ And suppose he 
does make a mistake ! Haven’t I heard the congre¬ 
gation correct Winkelstein scores of times?” 

“Hush!” said Jossel, “you talk like an Epicu¬ 
rean. Satan makes us all err at times, but we must 
not play into his hands. The Din (judgment) is that 
only those who see may read the Law to the- congre¬ 
gation.” 

“ Brum will read it much better than that snuffling 
old Winkelstein.” 

“ Sha ! Enough ! The Din is the Din ! ” 

“ It was never meant to stop my poor Brum from — ” 

“ The Din is the Din. It won’t let you dance on 
its head or chop wood on its back. Besides, the 
synagogue refuses, so make an end.” 

“ I will make an end. I’ll have Minyan (congre¬ 
gation) here, in our own house.” 

“ What! ” and the poor man stared in amaze. 
“ Always she falls from heaven with a new idea ! ” 

“ Brum shall not be disappointed.” And she gave 
the silent boy a passionate hug. 

“ But we have no Scroll of the Law,” Brum said, 
speaking at last, and to the point. 

“Ah, that’s you all over, Zillah,” cried Jossel, 
relieved, — “loud drumming in front and no soldiers 
behind! ” 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


13 


“We can borrow a Scroll,” said Zillah. 

Jossel gasped again, “But the iniquity is just the 
same,” he said. 

“ As if Brum made mistakes ! ” 

“If you were a Rabbi, the congregation would bap¬ 
tize itself ! ” Jossel quoted. 

Zillah writhed under the proverb. “ It isn’t as 
if you went to the Rabbi; you took the word of the 
Beadle.” 

“ He is a learned man.” 

Zillah donned her bonnet and shawl. 

“ Where are you going ? ” 

“To the minister.” 

Jossel shrugged his shoulders, but did not stop 
her. 

The minister, one of the new school of Rabbis 
who preach sermons in English and dress like Chris¬ 
tian clergymen, as befitted the dignity of Dalston 
villadom, was taken aback by the ritual problem, so 
new and so tragic. His acquaintance with the vast 
casuistic literature of his race was of the shallowest. 
“No doubt the Beadle is right,” he observed pro¬ 
foundly. 

“ He cannot be right; he doesn’t know my Brum.” 

Worn out by Zillah’s persistency, the minister 
suggested going to the Beadle’s together. Aware 
of the Beadle’s prodigious lore, he had too much 
regard for his own position to risk congregational 
odium by flying in the face of an exhumable Din. 


14 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS ” 


At the Beadle’s, the Din was duly unearthed from 
worm-eaten folios, but Zillah remaining unappeased, 
further searching of these Rabbinic scriptures re¬ 
vealed a possible compromise. 

If the portion the boy recited was read over again 
by a reader not blind, so that the first congregational 
reading did not count, it might perhaps be permitted. 

It would be of course too tedious to treat the whole 
Sedrah thus, but if Brum were content to recite his 
own particular seventh thereof, he should be sum¬ 
moned to the Rostrum. 

So Zillah returned to Jossel, sufficiently trium¬ 
phant. 

VI 

“Abraham, the son of Jossel, shall stand.” 

In obedience to the Cantor’s summons, the blind 
boy, in his high hat and silken praying-shawl with the 
blue stripes, rose, and guided by his father’s hand as¬ 
cended the platform, amid the emotion of the syna¬ 
gogue. His brave boyish treble, pursuing its faultless 
way, thrilled the listeners to tears, and inflamed Zillah’s 
breast, as she craned down from the gallery, with the 
mad hope that the miracle had happened, after all. 

The house-gathering afterward savoured of the grew- 
some conviviality of a funeral assemblage. But the 
praises of Brum, especially after his great speech, 
were sung more honestly than those of the buried; 
than whom the white-faced dull-eyed, boy, cut off from 



“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


15 


the gaily coloured spectacle in the sunlit room, was a 
more tragic figure. 

But Zillah, in her fineries and forced smiles, offered 
the most tragic image of all. Every congratulation 
was a rose-wreathed dagger, every eulogy of Brum’s 
eloquence a reminder of the Rabbi God had thrown 
away in him. 

VII 

Amid the endless babble of suggestions made to * 
her for Brum’s cure, one—repeated several times by 
different persons — hooked itself to her distracted 
brain. Germany ! There was a great eye-doctor in 
Germany, who could do anything and everything. 
Yes, she would go to Germany. 

This resolution, at which Jossel shrugged his 
shoulders in despairing scepticism, was received with 
rapture by Brum. How he had longed to see foreign 
countries, to pass over that shining sea which whis¬ 
pered and beckoned so, at Brighton and Ramsgate! 
He almost forgot he would not see Germany, unless 
the eye-doctor were a miracle-monger indeed. 

But he was doomed to a double disappointment; for 
instead of his going to Germany, Germany came to 
him, so to speak, in the shape of the specialist’s 
annual visit to London; and the great man had 
nothing soothing to say, only a compassionate head 
to shake, with ominous warnings to make the best of 
a bad job and fatten up the poor boy. 


16 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


Nor did Zillah’s attempts to read take her out of 
the infant primers, despite long hours of knitted brow 
and puckered lips, and laborious triumphs over the 
childish sentences, by patient addition of syllable to 
syllable. She also tried to write, but got no further 
than her own name, imitated from the envelopes. 

To occupy Brum’s days, Jossel, gaining enlighten¬ 
ment in the ways of darkness, procured Braille books 
But the boy had read most of the stock works thus 
printed for the blind, and his impatient brain fretted 
at the tardiness of finger-reading. Jossel’s one conso¬ 
lation was that the boy would not have to earn his 
living. The thought, however, of how his blind 
heir would be cheated by agents and rent-collectors 
was a touch of bitter even in this solitary sweet. 

VIII 

It was the Sabbath Fire-Woman who, appropriately 
enough, kindled the next glimmer of hope in Zillah’s 
bosom. The one maid-of-all-work, who had supplied 
all the help and grandeur Zillah needed in her estab¬ 
lishment, having transferred her services to a husband, 
Zillah was left searching for an angel at thirteen 
pounds a year. In the interim the old Irishwoman 
who made a few pence a week by attending to the 
Sabbath fires of the poor Jews of the neighbourhood, 
became necessary on Friday nights and Saturdays, to 
save the household from cold or sin. 



“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS »* 11 

“ Och, the quare little brat! ” she muttered, when 
she first came upon the pale, gnome-like figure by 
the fender, tapping the big book, for all the world 
like the Leprechaun cobbling. 

“ And can’t he see at all, at all ? ” she asked Zillah 
confidentially one Sabbath, when the boy was out of 
the room. 

Zillah shook her head, unable to speak. 

“Nebbich! ” compassionately sighed the Fire- 
Woman, who had corrupted her native brogue with 
“ Yiddish.” “ And wud he be borrun dark ? ” 

“ No, it came only a few months ago,” faltered 
Zillah. 

The Fire-Woman crossed herself. 

“ Sure, and who’ll have been puttin’ the Evil Oi on 
him? ” she asked. 

Zillah’s face was convulsed. 

“ I always said so ! ” she cried ; “ I always said 
so ! ” 

“ The divil burrun thim all! ” cried the Fire- 
Woman, poking the coals viciously. 

“ Yes, but I don’t know who it is. They envied 
me my beautiful child, my lamb, my only one. And 
nothing can be done.” She burst into tears. 

“Nothin’ is a harrd wurrd! If he was my bhoy, 
the darlint, I’d cure him, aisy enough, so I wud.” 

Zillah’s sobs ceased. “ How ? ” she asked, her 
eyes gleaming strangely. 

“ I’d take him to the Pope, av course.” 


18 


THEY THAI' WALK IN DARKNESS" 


“The Pope ! ” repeated Zillah vaguely. 

“Ay, the Holy Father! The ownly man in this 
wurruld that can take away the Evil Oi.” 

Zillah gasped. “ Do you mean the Pope of 
Rome ? ” 

She knew the phrase somehow, but what it con¬ 
noted was very shadowy and sinister: some strange, 
mighty chief of hostile heathendom. 

“Who else wud I be manin’? The Holy Mother 
I’d be for prayin’ to meself; but as ye’re a Jewess, 
I dursn’t tell ye to do that. But the Pope, he’s a 
gintleman, an’ so he is, an’ sorra a bit he’ll moind 
that ye don’t go to mass, whin he shpies that poor, 
weeshy, pale shrimp o’ yours. He’ll just wave his 
hand, shpake a wurrd, an’ whisht! in the twinklin’ 
of a bedposht ye’ll be praisin’ the Holy Mother.” 

Zillah’s brain was whirling. “ Go to Rome ! ” she 
said. 

The Fire-Woman poised the poker. 

“Well, ye can’t expect the Pope to come to 
Dalston! ” 

“No, no; I don’t mean that,” said Zillah, in hasty 
apology. “Only it’s so far off, and I shouldn’t 
know how to go.” 

“ It’s not so far off as Ameriky, an’ it’s two broths 
of bhoys I’ve got there.” 

“Isn’t it?” asked Zillah. 

“No, Lord love ye: an’ sure gold carries ye any¬ 
where nowadays, ixcept to Heaven.” 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


19 


“ But if I got to Rome, would the Pope see the 
child ? ” 

“As sartin as the child wud see him,” the Fire- 
Woman replied emphatically. 

“ He can do miracles, then ? ” inquired Zillah. 

“What else wud he be for? Not that ’tis much of 
a miracle to take away the Evil Oi, bad scran to the 
witchj ” 

“Then perhaps our Rabbi can do it, too?” cried 
Zillah, with a sudden hope. 

The Fire-Woman shook her head. “ Did ye ever 
hear he could ? ” 

“ No,” admitted Zillah. 

“Thrue for you, mum. Divil a wurrd wud I say 
aginst your Priesht—wan’s as good as another, 
maybe, for ivery-day use; but whin it comes to 
throuble and heart-scaldin’, I pity the poor craythurs 
who can’t put up a candle to the blessed saints — an’ 
so I do. Niver a bhoy o’ mine has crassed the ocean 
without the Virgin havin’ her candle.” 

“And did they arrive safe?” 

“ They did so ; ivery mother’s son av ’em.” 

IX 

The more the distracted mother pondered over 
this sensational suggestion, the more it tugged at 
her. Science and Judaism had failed her: perhaps 
this unknown power, this heathen Pope, had indeed 


20 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


mastery over things diabolical. Perhaps the strange 
religion he professed had verily a saving efficacy 
denied to her own. Why should she not go to 
Rome ? 

True, the journey loomed before her as fearfully 
as a Polar Expedition to an ordinary mortal. Ger¬ 
many she had been prepared to set out for: it lay 
on the great route of Jewish migration westwards. 
But Rome ? She did not even know where it was. 
But her new skill in reading would, she felt, help 
her through the perils. She would be able to make 
out the names of the railway stations, if the train 
waited long enough. 

But with the cunning of the distracted she did not 
betray her heretical ferment. 

“P—o—p—e, Pope,” she spelt out of her infants’ 
primer in Brum’s hearing. “ Pope ? What’s that, 
Brum?” 

“ Oh, haven’t you ever heard of the Pope, 
mother ? ” 

“ No,” said Zillah, crimsoning in conscious invisi¬ 
bility. 

“ He’s a sort of Chief Rabbi of the Roman Catho¬ 
lics. He wears a tiara. Kings and emperors used 
to tremble before him.” 

“And don’t they now?” she asked apprehensively. 

“ No ; that was in the Middle Ages — hundreds of 
years ago. He only had power over the Dark 
Ages.” 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS" 


21 


“Over the Dark Ages?” repeated Zillah, with a 
fresh, vague hope. 

“ When all the world was sunk in superstition and 
ignorance, mother. Then everybody believed in 
him.” 

Zillah felt chilled and rebuked. “ Then he no 
longer works miracles ? ” she said faintly. 

Brum laughed. “ Oh, I daresay he works as many 
miracles as ever. Of course thousands of pilgrims 
still go to kiss his toe. I meant his temporal power 
is gone — that is, his earthly power. He doesn’t 
rule over any countries; all he possesses is the 
Vatican, but that is full of the greatest pictures by 
Michael Angelo and Raphael.” 

Zillah gazed open-mouthed at the prodigy she had 
brought into the world. 

“Raphael — that sounds Jewish,” she murmured. 
She longed to ask in what country Rome was, but 
feared to betray herself. 

Brum laughed again. “ Raphael Jewish! Why 
— so it is! It’s a Hebrew word meaning ‘God’s 
healing.’ ” 

“ God’s healing ! ” repeated Zillah, awestruck. 

Her mind was made up. 

X 

“Knowest thou what, Jossel?” she said in “Yid¬ 
dish,” as they sat by the Friday-night fireside when 


22 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


Brum had been put to bed. “ I have heard of a new 
doctor, better than all the others ! ” After all it was 
the doctor, the healer, the exorcist of the Evil Eye, 
that she was seeking in the Pope, not the Rabbi of 
an alien religion. 

Jossel shook his head. “ You will only throw more 
money away.” 

“ Better than throwing hope away.” 

“ Well, who is it now ? ” 

‘‘He lives far away.” 

“ In Germany again ? ” 

“ No, in Rome.” 

“ In Rome ? Why, that’s at the end of the world 
— in Italy!” 

“I know it’s in Italy!” said Zillah, rejoiced at the 
information. “ But what then ? If organ-grinders 
can travel the distance, why can’t I ? ” 

“ But you can’t speak Italian ! ” 

“ And they can’t speak English ! ” 

“ Madness ! Work, but not wisdom ! I could not 
trust you alone in such a strange country, and the 
season is too busy for me to leave the factory.” 

“ I don’t need you with me,” she said, vastly re¬ 
lieved. “ Brum will be with me.” 

He stared at her. “ Brum ! ” 

“Brum knows everything. Believe me, Jossel, in 
two days he will speak Italian.” 

“ Let be ! Let be ! Let me rest! ” 

“ And on the way back he will be able to see! He 


“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS ” 23 

will show me everything, and Mr. Raphael’s pictures. 
‘ God’s healing,’ ” she murmured to herself. 

“ But you’d be away for Passover ! Enough ! ” 

“ No, we shall be easily back by Passover.” 

“ O these women ! The Almighty could not have 
rested on the seventh day if he had not left woman 
still uncreated.” 

“You don’t care whether Brum lives or dies!” 
Zillah burst into sobs. 

“ It is just because I do that I ask how are you 
going to live on the journey ? And there are no 
kosher hotels in Italy.” 

“We shall manage on eggs and fish. God will 
forgive us if the hotel plates are unclean.” 

“ But you won’t be properly nourished without 
meat.” 

“Nonsense; when we were poor we had to do 
without it.” To herself she thought, “If he only 
knew I did without food altogether on Mondays and 
Thursdays! ” 

XI 

And so Brum passed at last over the shining, 
wonderful sea, feeling only the wind on his forehead 
and the salt in his nostrils. It was a beautiful day 
at the dawn of spring; the far-stretching sea sparkled 
with molten diamonds, and Zillah felt that the highest 
God’s blessing rested like a blue sky over this strange 
pilgrimage. She was dressed with great taste, and 


24 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


few would have divined the ignorance under hei 
silks. 

“ Mother, can you see France yet ? ” Brum asked 
very soon. 

“ No, my lamb.” 

“Mother, can you see France yet?” he persisted 
later. 

“ I see white cliffs,” she said at last. 

“Ah! that’s only the white cliffs of Old England. 
Look the other way.” 

“ I am looking the other way. I see white cliffs 
coming to meet us.” 

“Has France got white cliffs, too?” cried Brum, 
disappointed. 

On the journey to Paris he wearied her to describe 
France. In vain she tried : her untrained vision 
and poor vocabulary could give him no new elements 
to weave into a mental picture. There were trees 
and sometimes houses and churches. And again 
trees. What kind of trees ? Green ! Brum was in 
despair. France was, then, only like England; white 
cliffs without, trees and houses within. He demanded 
the Seine at least. 

“Yes, I see a great water,” his mother admitted 
at last. 

“That’s it! It rises in the Cote d’Or, flows 
N. N. W. then W., and N. W. into the English 
Channel. It is more than twice as long as the 
Thames. Perhaps you’ll see the tributaries flowing 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


25 


into it — the little rivers, the Oise, the Marne, the 
Yonne.” 

“No wonder the angels envy me him]” thought 
Zillah proudly. 

They halted at Paris, putting up for the night, by 
the advice of a friendly fellow-traveller, at a hotel 
by the Gare de Lyon, where, to Zillah’s joy and 
amazement, everybody spoke English to her and 
accepted her English gold — a pleasant experience 
which was destined to be renewed at each stage, and 
which increased her hope of a happy issue. 

“ How loud Paris sounds ! ” said Brum, as they 
drove across it. He had to construct it from its 
noises, for in answer to his feverish interrogations 
his mother could only explain that some streets were 
lined with trees and some foolish unrespectable 
people sat out in the cold air, drinking at little 
tables. 

“ Oh, how jolly ! ” said Brum. “ But can’t you see 
Notre Dame?” 

“ What’s that ? ” 

“A splendid cathedral, mother — very old. Do 
look for two towers. We must go there the first 
thing to-morrow.” 

“ The first thing to-morrow we take the train. 
The quicker we get to the doctor, the better.” 

“Oh, but we can’t leave Paris without seeing 
Notre Dame, and the gargoyles, and perhaps Quasi¬ 
modo, and all that Victor Hugo describes. I wonder 


26 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


if we shall see a devil-fish in Italy,” he added 
irrelevantly. 

“ You’ll see the devil if you go to such places,” 
said Zillah, who, besides shirking the labor of de¬ 
scription, was anxious not to provoke unnecessarily 
the God of Israel. 

“ But I’ve often been to St. Paul’s with the boys,” 
said Brum. 

“ Have you ? ” She was vaguely alarmed. 

“Yes, it’s lovely — the stained windows and the 
organ. Yes, and the Abbey’s glorious, too ; it almost 
makes me cry. I always liked to hear the music 
with my eyes shut,” he added, with forced cheeriness, 
“and now that’ll be all right.” 

“ But your father wouldn’t like it,” said Zillah 
feebly. 

“ Father wouldn’t like me to read the Pilgrim's 
Progress ,” retorted Brum. “ He doesn’t understand 
these things. There’s no harm in our going to Notre 
Dame.” 

“No, no; it’ll be much better to save all these 
places for the way back, when you’ll be able to see 
for yourself.” 

Too late it struck her she had missed an opportunity 
of breaking to Brum the real object of the expedition. 

“ But the Seine, anyhow ! ” he persisted. “ We 
can go there to-night.” 

“ But what can you see at night ? ” cried Zillah, 
unthinkingly. 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


27 


“ Oh, mother! how beautiful it used to be to look 
over London Bridge at night when we came back 
from the Crystal Palace ! ” 

In the end Zillah accepted the compromise, and 
after their dinner of fish and vegetables — for which 
Brum had scant appetite — they were confided by 
the hotel porter to a bulbous-nosed cabman, who had 
instructions to restore them to the hotel. Zillah 
thought wistfully of her warm parlour in Dalston, 
with the firelight reflected in the glass cases of the 
wax flowers. 

The cab stopped on a quay. 

“ Well ? ” said Brum breathlessly. 

“ Little fool! ” said Zillah good-humouredly. 
“ There is nothing but water — the same water as 
in London.” 

“ But there are lights, aren’t there ? ” 

“ Yes, there are lights,” she admitted cheerfully. 

“ Where is the moon ? ” 

“ Where she always is — in the sky.” 

“ Doesn’t she make a silver path on the water ? ” 
he said, with a sob in his voice. 

“ What are you crying at ? The mother didn’t 
mean to make you cry.” 

She strained him contritely to her bosom, and 
kissed away his tears. 


28 


“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS ” 

XII 

The train for Switzerland started so early that 
Brum had no time to say his morning prayers ; so, 
the carriage being to themselves, he donned his phy¬ 
lacteries and his praying-shawl with the blue stripes. 

Zillah sat listening to the hour-long recitative with 
admiration of his memory. 

Early in the hour she interrupted him to say: 
“ How lucky I haven’t to say all that! I should get 
tired.” 

“That’s curious!” replied Brum. “ I was just say¬ 
ing, ‘ Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who hath 
not made me a woman.’ But a woman has to pray, 
too, mother. Else why is there given a special form 
for the women to substitute ? — ‘ Who hath made me 
according to His will.’ ” 

“ Ah, that’s only for learned women. Only 
learned women pray.” 

“ Well, you’d like to pray the Benediction that 
comes next, mother, I know. Say it with me — do.” 

She repeated the Hebrew obediently, then asked : 
“ What does it mean ? ” 

“ ‘ Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who openest 
the eyes of the blind.’ ” 

“ Oh, my poor Brum! Teach it me! Say the 
Hebrew again.” 

She repeated it till she could say it unprompted. 
And then throughout the journey her lips moved 


“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


29 


with it at odd times. It became a talisman — a 
compromise with the God who had failed her. 

“ Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who openest 
the eyes of the blind.” 


XIII 

Mountains were the great sensation of the pas¬ 
sage through Switzerland. Brum had never seen 
a mountain, and the thought of being among the 
highest mountains in Europe was thrilling. Even 
Zillah’s eyes could scarcely miss the mountains. 
She painted them in broad strokes. But they did 
not at all correspond to Brum’s expectations of the 
Alps. 

“ Don’t you see glaciers ? ” he asked anxiously. 

“ No,” replied Zillah, but kept a sharp eye on the 
windows of passing chalets till the boy discovered 
that she was looking for glaziers at work. 

“ Great masses of ice,” he explained, “ sliding 
down very slowly, and glittering like the bergs in 
the Polar regions.” 

“ No, I see none,” she said, blushing. 

“Ah ! wait till we come to Mont Blanc.” 

Mont Blanc was an obsession ; his geography was 
not minute enough to know that the route did not 
pass within sight of it. He had expected it to 
dominate Switzerland as a cathedral spire dominates 
a little town. 


30 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


‘‘ Mont Blanc is 15,784 feet above the sea,” he 
said voluptuously. “ Eternal snow is on its top, but 
you will not see that, because it is above the clouds.” 

“It is, then, in Heaven,” said Zillah. 

“God is there,” replied Brum gravely, and burst 
out with Coleridge’s lines from his school-book: — 

“ * God ! let the torrents, like a shout of nations, 

Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God! 

God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice ! 

Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds! 

And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow, 

And in their perilous fall shall thunder God ! 1 ” 

“Who openest the eyes of the blind,” murmured 
Zillah. 

“ There are five torrents rushing down, also,” 
added Brum. “ ‘ And you, ye five wild torrents 
fiercely glad.’ You’ll recognize Mont Blanc by 
that. Don’t you see them yet, mother ? ” 

“Wait, I think I see them coming.” 

Presently she announced Mont Blanc definitely ; 
described it with glaciers and torrents and its top 
reaching to God. 

Brum’s face shone. 

“ Poor lamb! I may as well give him Mont 
Blanc,” she thought tenderly. 

XIV 

Endless other quaint dialogues passed between 
mother and son on that tedious and harassing jour¬ 
ney southwards 





THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


31 


“There’ll be no more snow when we get to Italy,” 
Brum explained. “Italy’s the land of beauty — 
always sunshine and blue sky. It’s the country of 
the old Gods — Venus, the goddess of beauty; Juno, 
with her peacocks; Jupiter, with his thunderbolts, 
and lots of others.” 

“ But I thought the Pope was a Christian,” said 
Zillah. 

“ So he is. It was long ago, before people believed 
in Christianity.” 

“ But then they were all Jews.” 

“ Oh no, mother. There were Pagan gods that 
people used to believe in at Rome and in Greece. 
In Greece, though, these gods changed their names.” 

“ So ! ” said Zillah scornfully ; “ I suppose they 
wanted to have a fresh chance. And what’s become 
of them now ? ” 

“ They weren’t ever there, not really.” 

“And yet people believed in them? Is it possi¬ 
ble ? ” Zillah clucked her tongue with contemp¬ 
tuous surprise. Then she murmured mechanically, 
“ ‘ Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who openest 
the eyes of the blind.’ ” 

“ Well, and what do people believe in now ? The 
Pope! ” Brum reminded her. “And yet he's not true.” 

Zillah’s heart sank. “ But he’s really there,” she 
protested feebly. 

“ Oh yes, he’s there, because pilgrims come from 
all parts of the world to get his blessing.” 


32 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


Her hopes revived. 

“ But they wouldn’t come unless' he really did 
them good.” 

“ Well, if you argue like that, mother, you might 
as well say we ought to believe in Christ.” 

“Hush! hush!” The forbidden word jarred on 
Zillah. She felt chilled and silenced. She had to 
call up the image of the Irish Fire-Woman to restore 
herself to confidence. It was clear Brum must not 
be told; his unfaith might spoil all. No, the decep¬ 
tion must be kept up till his eyes were opened — in 
more than one sense. 


XV 

After Mont Blanc, Brum’s great interest was the 
leaning tower of Pisa. “ It is one of the wonders of 
the world,” he said; “there are seven altogether.” 

“Yes, it is a wonderful world,” said Zillah; “I 
never thought about it before.”' 

And in truth Italy was beginning to touch sleep¬ 
ing chords. The cypresses, the sunset on the moun¬ 
tains, the white towns dozing on the hills under the 
magical blue sky, — all these broad manifestations of 
an obvious beauty, under the spur of Brum’s inces¬ 
sant interrogatory, began to penetrate. Nature in 
unusual combinations spoke to her as its habitual 
phenomena had never done. Her replies to Brum 
did rough justice to Italy. 


THEY THAT WALK TV DARKNESS 


33 


Florence recalled “ Romola” to the boy. He told 
his mother about Savonarola. “ He was burnt! ” 
“What!” cried Zillah. “Burn a Christian! No 
wonder, then, they burnt Jews. But why ? ” 

“ He wanted the people to be good. All good 
people suffer.” 

“ Oh, nonsense, Brum ! It is the bad who suffer.” 
Then she looked at his wasted, white face, grown 
thinner with the weariness of the long journey 
through perpetual night, and wonder at her own 
words struck her silent. 


XVI 

They arrived at last in the Eternal City, having 
taken a final run of many hours without a break. 
But the Pope was still to seek. 

Leaving the exhausted Brum in bed, Zillah drove 
the first morning to the Vatican, where Brum said he 
lived, and asked to see him. 

A glittering Swiss Guard stared blankly at her, 
and directed her by dumb show to follow the stream 
of people — the pilgrims, Zillah told herself. She 
was made to scrawl her name, and, thanking God 
that she had acquired that accomplishment, she 
went softly up a gorgeous flight of steps, and past 
awe-inspiring creatures in tufted helmets, into the 
Sistine Chapel, where she wondered at people star¬ 
ing ceilingwards through opera-glasses, or looking 


34 


THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


downwards into little mirrors. Zillah also stared up 
through the gloom till she had a crick in the neck, 
but saw no sign of the Pope. She inquired of the 
janitor whether he was the Pope, and realized that 
English was, after all, not the universal language. 
She returned gloomily to see after Brum, and to con¬ 
sider her plan of campaign. 

“The great doctor was not at home,” she said. 
“We must wait a little.” 

“ And yet you made us hurry so through every¬ 
thing,” grumbled Brum. 

Brum remained in bed while Zillah went to get 
some lunch in the dining-room. A richly dressed old 
lady who sat near her noticed that she was eating 
Lenten fare, like herself, and, assuming her a fellow- 
Catholic, spoke to her, in foreign-sounding English, 
about the blind boy whose arrival she had observed. 

Zillah asked her how one could get to see the 
Pope, and the old lady told her it was very difficult. 

“Ah, those blessed old times before 1870! — ah, 
the splendid ceremonies in St. Peter’s! Do you 
remember them ? ” 

Zillah shook her head. The old lady’s assumption 
of spiritual fellowship made her uneasy. 

But St. Peter’s stuck in her mind. Brum had 
already told her it was the Pope’s house of prayer. 
Clearly, therefore, it was only necessary to loiter 
about there with Brum to chance upon him and 
extort his compassionate withdrawal of the spell of 


“THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


35 


the Evil Eye. With a culminating inspiration she 
bought ^ photograph of the Pope, and overcoming 
the first shock of hereditary repulsion at the sight of 
the large pendent crucifix at his breast, she studied 
carefully the Pontiff’s face and the Papal robes. 

Then, when Brum declared himself strong enough 
to get up, they drove to St. Peter’s, the instruction 
being given quietly to the driver so that Brum should 
not overhear it. 

It was the first time Zillah had ever been in a 
cathedral; and the vastness and glory of it swept 
over her almost as a reassuring sense of a greater 
God than she had worshipped in dingy synagogues. 
She walked about solemnly, leading Brum by the 
hand, her breast swelling with suppressed sobs of 
hope. Her eyes roved everywhere, searching for 
the Pope ; but at moments she well-nigh forgot her 
disappointment at his absence in the wonder and 
ghostly comfort of the great dim spaces, and the 
mysterious twinkle of the countless lights before the 
bronze canopy with its golden-flashing columns. 

“ Where are we, mother ? ” said Brum at last. 

“ We are waiting for the doctor.” 

“ But where ? ” 

“ In the waiting-room.” 

“ It seems very large, mother.” 

“No, I am walking round and round.” 

“ There is a strange smell, mother, — I don’t know 
what—something religious.” 


36 «THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS ” 

“ Oh, nonsense ! ” She laughed uneasily. 

“ I know what it smells like: cold marble pillars 
and warm coloured windows.” 

Her blood froze at such uncanny sensibility. 

“ It is the smell of the medicines,” she murmured. 
Somehow his divination made it more difficult to con¬ 
fess to him. 

“ It feels like being in St. Paul’s or the Abbey,” 
he persisted, “ when I used to shut my eyes to hear 
the organ better.” He had scarcely ceased speaking, 
when a soft, slow music began to thrill with life the 
great stone spaces. 

Brum’s grasp tightened convulsively : a light leapt 
into the blind face. Both came to a standstill, silent. 
In Zillah’s breast rapture made confusion more con¬ 
founded ; and as this pealing grandeur, swelling more 
passionately, uplifted her high as the mighty Dome, 
she forgot everything — even the need of explana¬ 
tion to Brum — in this wonderful sense of a Power 
that could heal, and her Hebrew benediction flowed 
out into sobbing speech : —- 

“ ‘ Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, who openest 
the eyes of the blind.’ ” 

But Brum had fainted, and hung heavy on her 
arm. 


XVII 


When Brum awoke, in bed again, after his long 
fainting-fit, he related with surprise his vivid dream 



THEY THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


37 


of St. Paul’s, and Zillah weakly acquiesced in the 
new deception, especially as the doctor warned her 
against exciting the boy. But her hopes were 
brighter than ever; for the old lady had beneficently 
appeared from behind a pillar in St. Peter’s to offer 
eau de Cologne for the unconscious Brum, and had 
then, interesting herself in the couple, promised to 
procure for her fellow-Catholics admission to the 
next Papal reception. Being a very rich and fash¬ 
ionable old lady, she kept her word; but unfortu¬ 
nately, when the day came round, Brum was terribly 
low and forbidden to leave his bed. 

Zillah was distracted. If she should miss the great 
chance after all! It might never recur again. 

“ Brum,” she said at last, “ this is the only day for 
a long time that the great eye-doctor receives patients. 
Do you think you could go, my lamb ? ” 

“ Why won’t he come here—like the other doctors ?” 

“ He is too great.” 

“Well, I daresay I can manage. It’s miserable 
lying in bed. Fancy coming to Rome and seeing 
nothing! ” 

With infinite care Brum was dressed and wrapped 
up, and placed in a specially comfortable brougham; 
and thus at last mother and son stood waiting in one 
of the ante-chambers of the Vatican, amid twenty 
other pilgrims whispering in strange languages. Zil¬ 
lah was radiantly assured : the mighty Power, what¬ 
ever it was, that spoke in music and in mountains, 



38 


THEv THAT WALK IN DARKNESS 


would never permit such weary journeyings and wait¬ 
ings to end in the old darkness; the malice of witches 
could not prevail against this great spirit of sunshine. 
For Brum, too, the long pilgrimage had enveloped 
the doctor with a miraculous glamour as of an eighth 
wonder of the world. 

Drooping wearily on his mother’s arm, but wrought 
up to joyous anticipation, Brum had an undoubting 
sense of the patient crowd around him waiting, as in 
his old hospital days, for admission to the doctor’s 
sanctum. His ear was strung for the ting-ting of the 
bell summoning the sufferers one by one. 

At last a wave of awe swept over the little fashion¬ 
able gathering, and set Zillah’s heart thumping and 
the room fading in mist, through which the tall, 
venerable, robed figure, the eagle features softened 
in benediction, gleamed like a god’s. Then she 
found herself on her knees, with Brum at her side, 
and the wonderful figure passing between two rows 
of reverent pilgrims. 

“ Why must I kneel, mother ? ” murmured Brum 
feebly. 

“Hush! hush!” she whispered. “The great 
doc—” she hesitated in awe of the venerable 
figure — “the great healer is here.” 

“The great healer!” breathed Brum. His face 
was transfigured with ecstatic forevision. “ * Who 
openeth the eyes of the blind,’ ” he murmured, as he 
fell forward in death. 


II 


TRANSITIONAL 








































































































































































































































































































































II 


TRANSITIONAL 

I 

The day came when old Daniel Peyser could no 
longer withstand his wife’s desire for a wider social 
sphere and a horizon blacker with advancing bach¬ 
elors. For there were seven daughters, and not a 
man to the pack. Indeed, there had been only one 
marriage in the whole Portsmouth congregation 
during the last five years, and the Christian papers 
had had reports of the novel ceremony, with the 
ritual bathing of the bride and the breaking of the 
glass under the bridegroom’s heel. To Mrs. Peyser, 
brought up amid the facile pairing of the Russian 
pale, this congestion of celibacy approached im¬ 
morality. 

Portsmouth with its careless soldiers and sailors 
might be an excellent town for pawnbroking, espe¬ 
cially when one was not too punctiliously acceptant 
of the ethics of the heathen, but as a market for 
maidens — even with dowries and pretty faces — it 
was hopeless. But it was not wholly as an emporium 
for bachelors that London appealed. It was the 
natural goal of the provincial Jew, the reward of his 
41 


42 


TRANSITIONAL 


industry. The best people had all drifted to the 
mighty magic city, whose fascination survived even 
cheap excursions to it. 

Would father deny that they had now made 
enough to warrant the migration? No, father 
would not deny it. Ever since he had left Germany 
as a boy he had been saving money, and his surplus 
he had shrewdly invested in the neighbouring soil of 
Southsea, fast growing into a watering-place. Even 
allowing three thousand pounds for each daughter’s 
dowry, he would still have a goodly estate. 

Was there any social reason why they should not 
cut as great a dash as the Benjamins or the Rosen- 
weilers ? No, father would not deny that his girls 
were prettier and more polished than the daughters 
of these pioneers, especially when six of them 
crowded around the stern granite figure, arguing, 
imploring, cajoling, kissing. 

“ But I don’t see why we should waste the money,” 
he urged, with the cautious instincts of early poverty. 

“Waste!” and the pretty lips made reproachful 
“Oh’s!” 

“ Yes, waste ! ” he retorted. “ In India one treads 
on diamonds and gold, but in London the land one 
treads on costs diamonds and gold.” 

“ But are we never to have a grandson ? ” cried 
Mrs. Peyser. 

The Indian item was left unquestioned, so that 
little Schnapsie, whose childish imagination was 


TRANSITIONAL 


43 


greatly impressed by these eventful family debates, 
had for years a vivid picture of picking her way with 
bare feet over sharp-pointed diamonds and pebbly 
gold. Indeed, long after she had learned to wonder 
at her father’s naive geography the word “India” 
always shone for her with barbaric splendour. 

Environed by so much persistent femininity, the 
rugged elderly toiler was at last nagged into accept¬ 
ing a leisured life in London. 

II 

And so the family spread its wings joyfully and 
migrated to the wonder-town. Only its head and 
tail — old Daniel and little Schnapsie — felt the 
least sentiment for the things left behind. Old 
Daniel left the dingy synagogue to whose presidency 
he had mounted with the fattening of his purse, and 
in which he bought for himself, or those he delighted 
to honour, the choicest privileges of ark-opening or 
scroll-bearing; left the cronies who dropped in to 
play “ Klabberjagd ” on Sunday afternoons ; left the 
bustling lucrative Saturday nights in the shop when 
the heathen housewives came to redeem their Sab¬ 
bath finery. 

And little Schnapsie—who was only eleven, and 
not keen about husbands — left the twinkling tarry 
harbour, with its heroic hulks and modern men-of-war 
amid which the half-penny steamer plied; left the 


44 


TRANSITIONAL 


great waves that smashed on the pebbly beach, and 
the friendly moon that threw shimmering paths 
across their tranquillity ; left the narrow lively streets 
in which she had played, and the school in which 
she had always headed her class, and the salt wind 
that blew over all. 

Little Schnapsie was only Schnapsie to her father. 
Her real name was Florence. The four younger 
girls all bore pagan names—Sylvia, Lily, Daisy, 
Florence — symbolic of the influence upon the family 
councils of the three elder girls, grown to years of 
discretion and disgust with their own Leah, Rachael, 
and Rebecca. Between these two strata of girls — 
Jewish and pagan — two boys had intervened, but 
their stay was brief and pitiful, so that all this pleth¬ 
ora of progeny had not provided the father with a 
male mourner to say the Kaddish. But it seemed 
likely a grandson would not long be a-wanting, for 
the eldest girl was twenty-five, and all were good- 
looking. As if in irony, the Jewish group was blond, 
almost Christian, in colouring (for they took after the 
Teuton father), while the pagan group had charac¬ 
teristically Oriental traits. In little Schnapsie these 
Eastern charms—a whit heavy in her sisters — were 
repeated in a key of exquisite refinement. The 
thick black eyebrows and hair were soft as silk, dark 
dreamy eyes suffused her oval face with poetry, and 
her skin was like dead ivory flushing into life. 


TRANSITIONAL 


45 


III 

The first year at Highbury, that genteel suburb 
in the north of London, was an enchanted ecstasy 
for the mother and the Jewish group of girls, taken 
at once to the bosom of a great German clan, and 
admitted to a new world of dances and dinners, of 
“ at homes ” and theatres and card parties. The 
eldest of the pagan group, Sylvia — tyrannically kept 
young in the interests of her sisters — was the only 
one who grumbled at the change, for Lily and Daisy 
found sufficient gain in the prospect of replacing the 
elder group when it should have passed away in an 
odour of orange blossom. The scent of that was 
always in the air, and Mrs. Peyser and her three 
hopefuls sniffed it night and day. 

“ No, no ; Rebecca shall have him.” 

“ Not me ! I am not going to marry a man with 
carroty hair. Leah’s the eldest; it’s her turn first.” 

“Thank you, my dear. Don’t give away what 
you haven’t got.” 

Every new young man who showed the faintest 
signs of liking to drop in, provoked a similar semi 
facetious but also semi-serious canvassing — his per¬ 
son, his income, and the girl to whom he should be 
allotted supplying the sauce of every meal at which 
he — or his fellow — was not present. 

Thus, whether in the flesh or the spirit, the Young 
Man — for so many of him appeared on the scene 


46 


TRANSITIONAL 


that he hovered in the air rather as a type than an 
individual — was a permanent guest at the Peyser 
table. 

But all this new domestic excitement did not com¬ 
pensate little Schnapsie for her moonlit waters and 
the strange ships that came and went with their 
cargo of mystery. 

And poor old Daniel found no cronies to appeal to 
him like the old, nothing in the roar of London to 
compensate for the Saturday night bustle of the 
pawn-shop, no dingy little synagogue desirous of his 
presidential pomp. He sat inconspicuously in a 
handsome half-empty edifice, and knew himself 
a superfluous atom in a vast lonely wilderness. 

He was not, indeed, an imposing figure, with his 
ragged graying whiskers and his boyish blue eyes. 
In the street he had the stoop and shuffle of the 
Ghetto, and forgot to hide his coarse red hands with 
gloves; in the house he persisted in wearing a pious 
skull-cap. At first his more adaptable wife and his 
English-bred daughters tried to fit him for decent 
society, and to make him feel at home during their 
“ at homes.” But he was soon relegated to the 
background of these brilliant social tableaux; for 
he was either too silent or too talkative, with old- 
fashioned Jewish jokes which disconcerted the smart 
young men, and with Hebrew quotations which they 
could not even understand. And sometimes there 
thrilled through the small-talk the trumpet-note of 


TRANSITIONAL 


47 


his nose, as he blew it into a coloured handkerchief. 
Gradually he was eliminated from the drawing-room 
altogether. 

But for some years longer he reigned supreme in 
the dining-room — when there was no company. 
Old habit kept the girls at table when he intoned 
with noisy unction the Hebrew grace after meals; 
they even joined in the melodious morceaux that 
diversified the plain-chant. But little by little their 
contributions dwindled to silence. And when they 
had smart company to dinner, the old man himself 
was hushed by rows of blond and bugle eyebrows ; 
especially after he had once or twice put young men 
to shame by offering them the honour of reciting the 
grace they did not know. 

Daniel’s prayer on such occasions was at length 
reduced to a pious mumbling, which went un¬ 
observed amid the joyous clatter of dessert, even as 
his pious skull-cap passed as a preventive against 
cold. 

Last stage of all, the mumbling of his company 
manners passed over into the domestic circle; and 
this humble whispering to God became symbolic of 
his suppression. 

IV 

“ I don’t think he means Rachael at all.” 

“ Oh, how can you say so, Leah ? It was me he 
took down to supper.” 


48 


TRANSITIONAL 


“Nonsense! it isn’t either of you he’s after; 
that’s only his politeness to my sisters. Didn’t he 
say the bouquet was for me ? ” 

“Don’t be silly, Rebecca. You know you can’t 
have him. The eldest must take precedence.” 

This changed tone indicated their humbler attitude 
toward the Young Man as the years went by. For 
the first young man did not propose, either to the 
sisterhood en bloc or to a particular sister. And his 
example was followed by his successors. In fact, a 
procession of young men passed and repassed through 
the house, or danced with the girls at balls, without 
a single application for any of these many hands. 
And the first season passed into the second, and the 
second into the third, with tantalizing mirages of 
marriage. Balls, dances, dinners, a universe of 
nebulous matrimonial matter on the whirl, but never 
the shot-off star of an engagement! Mrs. Peyser’s 
hair began to whiten faster. She even surreptitiously 
called in the Shadchan, or rather surrendered to his 
solicitations. 

“Pooh ! Not find any one suitable?” he declared, 
rubbing his hands. “ I have hundreds of young men 
on my books, just your sort, real gentlemen.” 

At first the girls refused to consider applications 
from such a source. It was not done in their set, 
they said. 

Mrs. Peyser snorted sceptically. “ Oh, indeed! 
and pray how did those Rosenweiler girls find 
husbands ? ” 


TRANSITIONAL 


49 


“ Oh, yes, the Rosenweilers! ” They shrugged 
their shoulders; they knew they had not that dis¬ 
advantage of hideousness. 

Nevertheless they lent an ear to the agent’s sug¬ 
gestions as filtered through the mother, though 
under pretence of deriding them. 

But the day came when even that pretence was 
dropped, and with broken spirit they waited eagerly 
for each new possibility. And with the passing of 
the years the Young Man aged. He grew balder, 
less gentlemanly, poorer. 

Once indeed, he turned up as a handsome and 
wealthy Christian, but this time it was he that was 
rejected in a unanimous sisterly shudder. Five slow 
years wore by, then of a sudden the luck changed. 
A water-proof manufacturer on the sunny side of 
forty appeared, the long glacial epoch was broken 
up, and the first orange blossom ripened for the 
Peyser household. 

It was Rebecca, the youngest of the Jewish group, 
who proved the pioneer to the canopy, but her 
marriage gave a new lease of youth even to the 
oldest. And miraculously, mysteriously, within a 
few months two other girls flew off Mrs. Peyser’s 
shoulders — a Jewish and a pagan — though Sylvia 
was not yet formally “out.” 

And though Leah, the first born, still remained 
unchosen, yet Sylvia’s marriage to a Bayswater 
household had raised the family status, and provided 


60 


TRANSITIONAL 


a better field for operations. The Shadchan was 
frozen off. 

But he returned. For despite all these auguries 
and auspices another arctic winter set in. No orange 
blossoms, only desolate lichens of fruitless flirtation. 

Gradually the pagan group pushed its way into 
unconcealable womanhood. The problem darkened 
all the horizon. The Young Man grew middle-aged 
again. He lost all his money; he wanted old Daniel 
to set him up in business. Even this seemed better 
than a barren fine ladyhood, and Leah might have 
even harked back to the parental pawn-shop had not 
another sudden epidemic of felicity married off all 
save little Schnapsie within eighteen months. Mrs. 
Peyser was knocked breathless by all these shocks. 
First a rich German banker, then a prosperous solici¬ 
tor (for Leah), then a Cape financier — any one in 
himself catch enough to “gouge out the eyes ” of the 
neighbours. 

“ I told you so,” she said, her portly bosom swell¬ 
ing portlier with exultation as the sixth bride was 
whirled off in a rice shower from the Highbury villa, 
while the other five sat around in radiant matronhood. 
“ I told you to come to London.” 

Daniel pressed her hand in gratitude for all the 
happiness she had given herself and the girls. 

“ If it were not for Florence,” she went on wistfully. 

“ Ah, little Schnapsie ! ” sighed Daniel. Somehow 
he felt he would have preferred her hymeneal felicity 


TRANSITIONAL 


61 


to all these marvellous marriages. For there had 
grown up a strange sympathy between the poor lonely 
old man, now nearly seventy, and his little girl, now 
twenty-four. They never conversed except about 
commonplaces, but somehow he felt that her presence 
warmed the air. And she — she divined his solitude, 
albeit dimly; had an intuition of what life had been 
for him in the days before she was born: the long 
days behind the counter, the risings in the gray dawn 
to chant orisons and don phylacteries ere the pawn¬ 
shop opened, the lengthy prayer and the swift supper 
when the shutters were at last put up — all the bare 
rock on which this floriage of prosperity had been 
sown. And long after the others had dropped kiss¬ 
ing him good-night, she would tender her lips, partly 
because of the necessary domestic fiction that she was 
still a baby, but also because she felt instinctively 
that the kiss counted in his life. 

Through all these years of sordid squabbles and 
canvassings and weary waiting, all those endless 
scenes of hysteria engendered by the mutual friction 
of all that close-packed femininity, poor Schnapsie 
had lived, shuddering. Sometimes a sense of the 
pathos of it all, of the tragedy of women’s lives, swept 
over her. She regretted every inch she grew, it 
seemed to shame her celibate sisters so. She clung 
willingly to short skirts until she was of age, wore 
her long raven hair in a plait with a red ribbon. 

“Well, Florence,” said Leah genially, when the 


52 


TRANSITIONAL 


last outsider'at Daisy’s wedding had departed, “it’s 
your turn next. You’d better hurry up.” 

“Thank you,” said Florence coldly. “I shall 
take my own time; fortunately there is no one be¬ 
hind me.” 

“ Humph ! ” said Leah, playing with her diamond 
rings. “ It don’t do to be too particular. Why don’t 
you come round and see me sometimes ? ” 

“There are so many of you now,” murmured 
Florence. She was not attracted by the solicitors 
and traders in whose society and carriages her mother 
lolled luxuriously, and she resented the matronly airs 
of her sisters. With Leah, however, she was con¬ 
scious of a different and more paradoxical provo’ca- 
tion. Leah had an incredible air of juvenility. All 
those unthinkable, innumerable years little Schnapsie 
had conceived of her eldest sister as an old maid, 
hopeless, senescent, despite the wonderful belt that 
had kept her figure dashing; but now that she was 
married she had become the girlish bride, kittenish, 
irresistible, while little Schnapsie was the old maid, 
the sister in peril of being passed by. And indeed 
she felt herself appallingly ancient, prematurely aged 
by her long stay at seventeen. 

“Yes, you are right, Leah,” she said pensively, 
with a touch of malice. “ To-morrow I shall be 
twenty-four.” 

“ What ? ” shrieked Leah. 

“Yes,” Florence said obstinately. “And oh, how 


TRANSITIONAL 


53 


glad I shall be! ” She raised her arms exultingly 
and stretched herself, as if shooting up seven years 
as soon as the pressure of her sisters was removed. 

“Do you hear, mother?” whispered Leah. “That 
fool of a Florence is going to celebrate her twenty- 
fourth birthday. Not the slightest consideration for 
us ! ” 

“ I didn’t say I would celebrate it publicly,” said 
Florence. “ Besides,” she suggested, smiling, “very 
soon people will forget that I am not the eldest.” 

“ Then your folly will recoil on your own head,” 
said Leah. 

Little Schnapsie gave a devil-may-care shrug — a 
Ghetto trait that still clung to all the sisters. 

“Yes,” added Mrs. Peyser. “Think what it will 
be in ten years’ time! ” 

“ I shall be thirty-four,” said Florence imper¬ 
turbably. Another little smile lit up the dreamy 
eyes. “ Then I shall be the eldest.” 

“ Madness! ” cried Mrs. Peyser, aloud, forgetting 
that her daughters’ husbands were about. “ God 
forbid I should live to see any girl of mine thirty- 
four ! ” 

“Hush, mother!” said Florence quietly. “I 
hope you will; indeed, I am sure you will, for I 
shall never marry. So don’t bother to put me on 
the books—I’m not on the market. Good-night.” 

She sought out poor Daniel, who, awed by the 
culture and standing of his five sons-in-law, not to 


TRANSITIONAL 


54 ' 

speak of the guests, was hanging about the de¬ 
serted supper-room, smoking cigar after cigar, much 
to the disgust of the caterer’s men, who were wait¬ 
ing to spirit away the box. 

Having duly kissed her father, little Schnapsie 
retired to bed to read Browning’s love-poems. Her 
mother had to take a glass of champagne to re¬ 
store her ruffled nerves to the appropriate ecstasy. 

V 

Poor portly Mrs. Peyser was not destined to en¬ 
joy her harvest of happiness for more than a few 
years. But these years were an overbrimming cup, 
with only the bitter drop of Florence’s heretical 
indifference to the Young Man. Environed by the 
six households which she had begotten, Mrs. Pey¬ 
ser breathed that atmosphere of ebullient babyhood 
which was the breath of her Jewish nostrils; babies 
appeared almost every other month. It was a seeth¬ 
ing well-spring of healthy life. Religious cere¬ 
monies connected with these chubby new-comers, 
or medical recipes for their bodily salvation, ab¬ 
sorbed her. But her exuberant grandmotherliness 
usually received a check in the summer, when the 
babies were deported to scattered sea-shores; and 
thus it came to pass that the summer of her death 
found her still lingering in London with a bad 
cold, with only Daniel and little Schnapsie at 



TRANSITIONAL 


55 


hand. And before the others could be called, Mrs. 
Peyser passed away in peace, in the old Portsmouth 
bed, overlooked by the old Hebrew picture exiled 
from the London dining-room. 

It was a curious end. She did not know she 
was dying, but Daniel was anxious she should not 
be reft into silence before she had made the im¬ 
memorial proclamation of the Unity. At the same 
time he hesitated to appall her with the grim 
knowledge. 

He was blubbering piteously, yet striving to hide 
his sobs. The early days of his struggle came 
back, the first weeks of wedded happiness, then 
the long years of progressive prosperity and godly 
cheerfulness in Portsmouth ere she had grown fash¬ 
ionable and he unimportant; and a vast self-pity 
mingled with his pitiful sense of her excellencies 
— the children she had borne him in agony, the 
economy of her house management, the good bar¬ 
gains she had driven with the clod-pated soldiers and 
sailors, the later splendour of her social achievement. 

And little Schnapsie wept with a sense of the 
vanity of these dual existences to which she owed 
her own empty life. 

Suddenly Mrs. Peyser, over whose black eyes a 
glaze had been stealing, let the long dark eye¬ 
lashes fall over them. 

“ Sarah ! ” whispered Daniel frantically. “ Say 
the Shemang! ” 


56 


TRANSITIONAL 


“ Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord 
is one,” said the sensuous lips obediently. 

Little Schnapsie shrugged her shoulders rebel- 
liously. The dogma seemed so irrelevant. 

Mrs. Peyser opened her eyes, and a beautiful 
mother-light came into them as she saw the weep¬ 
ing girl. 

“ Ah, Florrie, do not fret,” she said reassuringly, 
in her long-lapsed Yiddish. “ I will find thee a 
bridegroom.” 

Her eyes closed, and little Schnapsie shuddered 
with a weird image of a lover fetched from the 
shrouded dead. 


VI 

After his Sarah had been lowered into “ The 
House of Life,” and the excitement of the tomb¬ 
stone recording her virtues had subsided, Daniel 
would have withered away in an empty world but 
for little Schnapsie. The two kept house together; 
the same big house that had reeked with so much 
feminine life, and about which the odours of per¬ 
fumes and powders still seemed to linger. But 
father and daughter only met at meals. He spent 
hours over the morning paper, with the old quaint 
delusions about India and other things he read of, 
and he pottered about the streets, or wandered into 
the Beth-Hamidrash, which a local fanatic had just 
instituted in North London, and in which, under 



TRANSITIONAL 


57 


the guidance of a Polish sage, Daniel strove to 
concentrate his aged wits on the ritual problems 
of Babylon. At long intervals he brushed his old- 
fashioned high hat carefully, and timidly rang the 
bell of one of his daughters’ mansions, and was 
permitted to caress a loudly remonstrating baby; 
but they all lived so far from him and one another 
in this mighty London. From Sylvia’s, where there 
was a boy with buttons, he had always been fright¬ 
ened off, and when the others began to emulate 
her, his visits ceased altogether. As for the sisters 
coming to see him, all pleaded overwhelming do¬ 
mestic duty, and the frigidity of Florence’s recep¬ 
tion of them. “Now if you lived alone — or with 
one of us! ” But somehow Daniel felt the latter 
alternative would be as desolate as the former. 
And though he knew some wide vague river flowed 
between even his present housemate’s life and his 
own, yet he felt far more clearly the bridge of love 
over which their souls passed to each other. 

Figure then the septuagenarian’s amaze when, 
one fine morning, as he was shuffling about in his 
carpet slippers, the servant brought him word that 
his six daughters demanded his instantaneous pres¬ 
ence in the drawing-room. 

The shock drove out all thoughts of toilet; his 
heart beat quicker with a painful premonition of 
he knew not what. This simultaneous visit re¬ 
called funerals, weddings. He looked out of a 


58 


TRANSITIONAL 


window and saw four carriages drawn up, and 
that completed his sense of something elemental. 
He tottered into the drawing-room — grown dingy 
now that it had no more daughters to dispose of — 
and shrank before the resplendence with which 
their presence reinvested it. They rustled with 
silks, shone with gold necklaces, and impregnated 
the air with its ancient aroma of powders and per¬ 
fumes. He felt himseif dwindling before all this 
pungent prosperity, like some more creative Frank¬ 
enstein before a congress of his own monsters. 

They did not rise as he entered. The Jewish 
group and the pagan group were promiscuously 
seated — marriage had broken down all the ancient 
landmarks. They all looked about the same age¬ 
lessness— a standstill buxom matronhood. 

Daniel stood at the door, glancing from one 
to another. Some coughed; others fidgeted with 
muffs. 

“ Sit down, sit down, father,” said Rachael kindly, 
though she retained the arm-chair, — and there was 
a general air of relief at her voice. But the old 
embarrassment returned as the silence reestablished 
itself when Daniel had drooped into a stiff chair. 

At last Leah took the word: “ We have come 
while Florrie is at her slumming — ” 

“ At her slumming! ” repeated Sylvia, with more 
significance, and a meaning smile spread over the 
six faces. 




TRANSITIONAL 


59 


“ Yes ? ” Daniel murmured. 

“— Because we did not want her to know of 
our coming.” 

“ It concerns Schnapsie ? ” he murmured. 

“ Yes, your little Schnapsie,” said Daisy viciously. 

“Yes; she has no time to come and see us,” cried 
Rebecca. “But she has plenty of time for her — 
slumming” 

“Well, she does good,” he murmured apologetically. 

“ A fat lot of good! ” sniggered Rachael. 

“To herself ! ” corrected Lily. 

“ I do not understand,” he muttered uneasily. 

“ Well — ” began Lily. “ You tell him, Leah ; you 
know more about it.” 

“You know as much as I do.” 

He looked appealingly from one to the other. 

“ I always said the slums were dangerous places 
for people of our class,” said Sylvia. “ She doesn’t 
even confine herself to her own people.” 

The faces began to lighten — evidently they felt 
the ice broken. 

“Dangerous!” he repeated, catching at the omi¬ 
nous word. 

“ Dreadful! ” in a common shudder. 

He half rose. “You have bad news?” he cried. 

The faces gloomed over, the heads nodded. 

“ About Schnapsie ? ” he shrieked, jumping up. 

“Sit down, sit down; she’s not dead,” said Leah 
contemptuously. 


60 


T^ANS/T/OJVAL 


He sat down. 

“ Well, what is it ? What has happened ? ” 

“ She’s engaged ! ” In Leah’s mouth the word 
sounded like a death-bell. 

“ Engaged ! ” he breathed, with a glimmering fore¬ 
boding of the horror. 

“ To a Christian ! ” said Daisy brutally. 

He sank back, pale and trembling. A tense silence 
fell on the room. 

“ But how ? Who ? ” he murmured at last. 

The girls recovered themselves. Now they were 
all speaking at once. 

“ Another shimmer.” 

“ He’s the son of an archdeacon.” 

“ An awful Christian crank.” 

“ And that’s your pet Schnapsie.” 

“ If we had wanted Christians, we could have been 
married twenty years ago.” 

“ It’s a terrible disgrace for us.” 

“ She doesn’t consider us in the least.” 

“ She’ll be miserable, anyhow. When they quarrel, 
he’ll always throw it up to her that she’s a Jewess.” 

“And wouldn’t join our Daughters of Mercy com¬ 
mittee— had no time.” 

“Wasn’t going to marry — turned up her nose at 
all the Jewish young men ! ” 

“ But she would have told me! ” he murmured 
hopelessly. “ I don’t believe it. My little Schnap¬ 
sie ! ” 



TRANSITIONAL 


61 


“ Don’t believe it ? ” snorted Leah. “ Why, she 
didn’t even deny it.” 

“ Have you spoken to her, then ? ” 

“ Have we spoken to her ! Why, she says Judaism 
is all nonsense ! She will disgrace us all.” 

The blind racial instinct spoke through them — 
the twenty-five centuries of tested separateness. But 
Daniel felt in super-addition the conscious religious 
horror. 

“ But is she to be married in a Christian church ? ” 
he breathed. 

“ Oh, she isn’t going to marry — yet.” 

His poor heart fluttered at the reprieve. 

“ She doesn’t care a pin for our feelings,” went on 
Leah. “ But of course she won’t marry while you 
are alive.” 

Lily took up the thread. “ We all told her if she’d 
only marry a Jew, we’d all be glad to have you— in 
turn. But she said it wasn’t that. She could have 
you herself; her Alfred wouldn’t mind. It’s the 
shock to your religious feelings that keeps her back. 
She doesn’t want to hurt you.” 

“God bless her, my good little Schnapsie!” he 
murmured. His dazed brain did not grasp all the 
bearings, was only conscious of a vast relief. 

Disgust darkened all the faces. 

He groped to understand it, putting his hand over 
the white hairs that straggled from his skull-cap. 

“ But then — then it’s all right.” 


62 


TRANSITIONAL 


“ Yes, all right,” said Leah brutally. “ But for 
how long ? ” 

Her meaning seized him like an icy claw upon his 
heart. For the first time in his life he realized the 
certainty of death, and simultaneously with the cer¬ 
tainty its imminence. 

“ We want you to put a stop to it now” said 
Sylvia. “ For our sakes make her promise that even 
when— You’re the only one who has any influence 
over her.” 

She rose, as if to wind up the painful interview, 
and the others rose, too, with a multiplex rustling of 
silken skirts. He shook the six jewelled hands as in 
a dream, and promised to do his best; and as he 
watched the little procession of carriages roll off, it 
seemed to him indeed a funeral, and his own. 

VII 

Ah God, that it should have come to this. Little 
Schnapsie could not be happy till he was dead. 
Well, why should he keep her waiting ? What 
mattered the few odd years or months ? He was 
already dead. There was his funeral going down 
the street. 

To speak to Schnapsie he had never intended, 
even while he was promising it. Those years of 
silent life together had made real conversation impos¬ 
sible. The bridge on which his soul passed over to 



TRANSITIONAL 


63 


hers was a bridge over which hung a sacred silence. 
Under the weight of words, especially of angry 
parental words, it might break down forever. And 
that would be worse than death. 

No; little Schnapsie had her own life, and he 
somehow knew he had not the right to question it, 
even though it seemed on the verge of deadly sin. 
He could not have expressed it in logical speech, was 
not even clearly conscious of it; but his tender rela¬ 
tion with her had educated him to a sense of her 
moral rightness, which now survived and subsisted 
with his conviction that she was hopelessly astray. 
No, he had not the right to interfere with her life, 
with her prospect of happiness in her own way. He 
must give up living. Little Schnapsie must be nearly 
thirty; the best of her youth was gone. She should 
be happy with this strange man. 

But if he killed himself, that would bring disgrace 
on the family—and little Schnapsie. Perhaps, too, 
Alfred would not marry her. Was there no way of 
slipping quietly out of existence ? But then suicide 
was another deadly sin. If only that had really been 
his funeral procession! 

“ O God, God of Israel, tell me what to do! ” 

VIII 

A sudden inspiration leapt to his heart. She 
should not have to wait for his death to be happy; 


64 


TRANSITIONAL 


he would live to see her happy. He would pretend 
that her marriage cost him no pang; indeed, would 
not truly the pang be swallowed up in the thought of 
her happiness ? But would she be happy ? Could 
she be happy with this alien ? Ah, there was the 
chilling doubt! If a quarrel came, would not the 
man always throw it in her face that she was a 
Jewess ? Well, that must be left to herself. She was 
old enough not to rush into misery. Through all 
these years he had taken her pensive brow as the 
seat of all wisdom, her tender eyes as the glow of all 
goodness, and he could not suddenly readjust himself 
to a contradictory conception. By the time she came, 
in he had composed himself for his task. 

“ Ah, my dear,” he said, with a beaming smile, “ I 
have heard the good news.” 

The answering smile died out of her eyes. She 
looked frightened. 

“ It’s all right, little Schnapsie,” he said roguishly. 
“ So now I shall have seven sons-in-law. And Alfred 
the Second, eh ? ” 

“ You have heard ? ” 

“Yes,” he said, pinching her ear. “Thinks she 
can keep anything from her old father, does she ? ” 
“ But do you know that he is a — a — ” 

“ A Christian ? Of course. What’s the difference, 
as long as he’s a good man, eh ? ” He laughed noisily. 

Little Schnapsie looked more frightened than ever. 
Were her father’s wits wandering at last ? 



TRANSITIONAL 


66 


“But I thought — ” 

“ Thought I would want you to sacrifice yourself! 
No, no, my dear; we are not in India, where women 
are burnt alive to please their dead husbands.” 

Little Schnapsie had an irrelevant vision of herself 
treading on diamonds and gold. She murmured, 
“ Who told you ? ” 

“ Leah.” 

“ Leah ! But Leah is angry about it! ” 

“ So she is. She came to me in a tantrum, but I 
told her whatever little Schnapsie did was right.” 

“Father!” With a sudden cry of belief and af¬ 
fection she fell on his neck and kissed him. “ But 
isn’t the darling old Jew shocked?” she said, half 
smiling, half weeping. 

Cunning lent him clairvoyance. “ How much 
Judaism is there in your sisters’ husbands ? ” he said. 
“And without the religion, what is the use of the 
race ? ” 

“ Why, father, that’s what I’m always preach¬ 
ing ! ” she cried, in astonishment. “ Think what our 
Judaism was in the dear old Portsmouth days. What 
is the Sabbath here ? A mockery. Not one of your 
sons-in-law closes his business. But there, when the 
Sabbath came in, how beautiful! Gradually it glided, 
glided; you heard the angel’s wings. Then its shin¬ 
ing presence was upon you, and a holy peace settled 
over the house.” 

“ Yes, yes.” His eyes filled with tears. He saw 


66 


TRANSITIONAL 


the row of innocent girl faces at the white Sabbath 
table. What had London and prosperity brought 
him instead ? 

“And then the Atonement days, when the ram’s 
horn thrilled us with a sense of sin and judgment, 
when we thought the heavenly scrolls were being 
signed and sealed. Who feels that here, father ? 
Some of us don’t even fast.” 

“True, true.” He forgot his part. “Then you 
are a good Jewess still ? ” 

She shook her head sadly. “We have outlived 
our destiny. Our isolation is a meaningless relic.” 

But she had kindled a new spark of hope. 

“ Can’t you bring him over to us ? ” 

“ To what ? To our empty synagogues ? ” 

“ Then you are going over to him?” He tried to 
keep his voice steady. 

“ I must; his father is an archdeacon.” 

“ I know, I know,” he said, though she might as 
well have said an archangel. 

“ But you do not believe in — in — ” 

“ I believe in self-sacrifice ; that is Christianity.” 

“ Is it ? I thought it was three Gods.” 

“That is not the essential.” 

“ Thank God ! ” he said. Then he added hurriedly : 
“ But will you be happy with him ? Such different 
bringing up! You can’t really feel close to him.” 

She laughed and blushed. “There are deeper 
things than one’s bringing up, father.” 



TRANSITIONAL 


67 


“ But if after marriage you should have a quarrel, 
he would always throw up to you that you are a 
Jewess.” 

“ No, Alfred will never do that.” 

“Then make haste, little Schnapsie, or your old 
father won’t live to’see you under the canopy.” 

She smiled happily, believing him. “ But there 
won’t be any canopy,” she said. 

“Well, well, whatever it is,” he laughed back, with 
horrid imagining that it might be a Cross. 


IX 

It was agreed between them that, to avoid endless 
family councils, the sisters should not be told, and 
that the ceremony should be conducted as privately 
as possible. The archdeacon himself was coming up 
to town to perform the ceremony in the church of 
another of his sons in Chalk Farm. After the short 
honeymoon, Daniel was to come and live with the 
couple in Whitechapel, for they were to live in the 
centre of their labours. Poor .Daniel tried to find 
some comfort in the thought that Whitechapel was 
a more Jewish and a homelier quarter than Highbury. 
But the unhomely impression produced upon him 
by his latest son-in-law neutralized everything. All 
his other sons-in-law had more or less awed him, but 
beneath the awe ran a tunnel of brotherhood. With 


i 


68 


TRANSITIONAL 


this Alfred, however, he was conscious of a glacial 
current, which not all the young man’s cordiality 
could tepefy. 

“ Are you sure you will be happy with him, little 
Schnapsie ? ” he asked anxiously. 

“ You dear worrying old thing! ” 

“ But if after marriage you quarrel, he will always 
throw it up to you that you are — ” 

“ And I’ll throw it up to him that he is a Christian, 
and oughtn’t to quarrel.” 

He was silenced. But his heart thanked God that 
his dear old wife had been spared the coming ordeal. 

“This too was for good,” he murmured, in the 
Hebrew proverb. 

And so the tragic day drew nigh. 

X 

One short week before, Daniel was wandering 
about, dazed by the near prospect. An unholy fas¬ 
cination drew him toward Chalk Farm, to gaze on 
the church in which the profane union would be 
perpetrated. Perhaps he ought even to go inside; to 
get over his first horror at being in such a building, 
so as not to betray himself during the actual cere¬ 
mony. 

As he drew near the heathen edifice he saw a 
striped awning, carriages, a bustle of people entering, 
a pressing, peeping crowd. A wedding ! 



TRANSITIONAL 


69 


Ah, good! There was no doubt now he must go 
in ; he would see what this unknown ceremony in 
this unknown building was like. It would be a sort 
of rehearsal; it would help to steel him at the tragic 
moment. He was passing through the central doors 
with some other men, but a policeman motioned them 
to a side door. He shuffled timidly within. 

Full as the church was, the chill stone spaces 
struck cold to his heart; all the vast alien life they 
typified froze his soul. The dread word Meshumad 
— apostate — seemed echoing and reechoing from 
the cold pillars. He perceived his companions had 
bared their heads, and he hastily snatched off his 
rusty beaver. The unaccustomed sensation in his 
scalp completed his sense of unholiness. 

Nothing seemed going on yet, but as he slipped 
into a seat in the aisle he became aware of an organ 
playing joyous preludes, almost jiggish. For a mo¬ 
ment he wondered dully what there was to be gay 
about, and his eyes filled with bitter tears. 

A craning forward in the nondescript congregation 
made the old man peer forward. 

He saw, at the far end of the church, a sort of 
platform upon which four men, in strange, flowing 
robes, stood under a cross. He hid his eyes from 
the sight of the symbol that had overshadowed his 
ancestors’ lives. When he opened his eyes again the 
men were kneeling. Would he have to kneel, he 
wondered. Would his old joints have to assume 


70 


TRANSITIONAL 


that pagan posture? Presently four bridesmaids, 
shielded by great glowing bouquets, appeared on the 
platform, and descending, passed with measured the¬ 
atric pace down the farther avenue, too remote for 
his clear vision. His neighbours stood up to stare at 
them, and he rose, too. And throughout the organ 
bubbled out its playful cadenzas. 

A stir and a buzz swept through the church. A 
procession began to file in. At its head was a pale, 
severe young man, supported by a cheerful young 
man. Other young men followed; then the brides¬ 
maids reappeared. And finally — target of every 
glance — there passed a glory of white veil supported 
by an old military looking man in a satin waistcoat. 

Ah, that would be he and Schnapsie, then. Up 
that long avenue, beneath all these curious Christian 
eyes, he, Daniel Peyser, would have to walk. He 
tried to rehearse it mentally now, so that he might 
not shame her; he paced pompously and stiffly, with 
beautiful Schnapsie on his arm, a glory of white veil. 
He saw himself slowly reaching the platform, under 
the chilling cross; then everything swam before him, 
and he sank shuddering into his seat. His little 
Schnapsie! She was being sucked up into all this 
hateful heathendom, to the seductive music of satanic 
orchestras. 

He sat in a strange daze, vaguely conscious that 
the organ had ceased, and that some preacher’s reci¬ 
tative had begun instead. When he looked up 



TRANSITIONAL 


71 


again, the bridal party before the altar loomed vague, 
as through a mist. He passed his hand over his 
clouded brow. Of a sudden a sentence of the recita¬ 
tive pierced sharply to his brain : — 

“Therefore if any man can show any just cause 
why they may not lawfully be joined together, let 
him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his 
peace.” 

O God of Israel! Then it was the last chance! 
He sprang to his feet, and shouted in agony: “ No, 
no, she must not marry him ! She must not! ” 

All heads turned toward the shabby old man. 
An electric shiver ran through the church. The 
bride paled; a bridesmaid shrieked; the minister, 
taken aback, stood silent. A white-gloved usher 
hurried up. 

“ Do you forbid the banns ? ” called the minister. 

The old man’s mind awoke, and groped mistily. 

“ Come, what have you to say ? ” snapped the 
usher. 

“I—I — nothing,” he murmured in awed confu¬ 
sion. 

“ He is drunk,” said the usher. “ Out with you, 
my man.” He hustled Daniel toward the side door, 
and let it swing behind him. 

But Daniel shrank from facing the cordon of spec¬ 
tators outside. He hung miserably about the vestibule 
till the Wedding March swelled in ironic triumph, 
and the human outpour swept him into the street. 




72 


TRANSITIONAL 


XI 

His abstracted look, his ragged talk, troubled 
Schnapsie at the evening meal, but she could not 
elicit that anything had happened. 

In the evening paper, her eye, avid of marriage 
items, paused on a big-headed paragraph. 

“I FORBID THE BANNS!” 

STRANGE SCENE AT A CHALK FARM CHURCH. 

When she had finished the paragraph and read 
another, the first began to come back to her, shad¬ 
owed with a strange suspicion. Why, this was the 
very church — ? A Jewish-looking old man — ! 
Great heavens! Then all this had been mere pose, 
self-sacrifice. And his wits were straying under the 
too heavy burden! Only blind craving for her own 
happiness could have made her believe that the men¬ 
tal habits of seventy years could be broken off. 

“ Well, father,” she said brightly, “ you will be los¬ 
ing me very soon now.” 

His lips quivered into a pathetic smile. 

“ I am very glad.” He paused, struggling with 
himself. “ If you are sure you will be happy ! ” 

“ But haven’t we talked that over enough, father?” 

“Yes —but you know — if a quarrel arose, he 
would always throw it up—that — ” 

“ Nonsense, nonsense,” she laughed. But the repe- 







TRANSITIONAL 


73 


tition of the old thought struck her poignantly as a 
sign of maundering wits. 

“ And you are sure you will get along together? ” 

“ Quite sure.” 

“Then I am glad.” He drew her to him, and 
kissed her. 

She broke down and wept under the conviction of 
his lying. He became the comforter in his turn. 

“ Don’t cry, little Schnapsie, don’t cry. I didn’t 
mean to frighten you. Alfred is a good man, and I 
am sure, even if you quarrel, he will never throw 
it — ” The mumbling passed into a kiss on her 
wet cheek. 


XII 

That night, after a long passionate vigil in her 
bedroom, little Schnapsie wrote a letter: — 

“Dearest Alfred, — This will be as painful for you to 
read as for me to write. I find at the eleventh hour I cannot 
marry you. I owe it to you to state my reason. As you know, 
I did not consent to our love being crowned by union till my 
father had given his consent. I now find that this consent was 
not the free outcome of my father’s soul, that it was only to pro¬ 
mote my happiness. Try to imagine what it means for an old 
man of seventy odd years to wrench himself away from all his 
life-long prejudices, and you will realize what he has been try¬ 
ing to do for me. But the wrench was beyond his strength. 
He is breaking his heart over it, and, I fear, even wandering 
in his mind. 

“ You will say, let us again consent to wait for a contingency 
which I am not cold-blooded enough to set down more openly. 


74 


TRANSITIONAL 


But 1 do not think it is fair to you to let you risk your happi- 
ness further by keeping it entangled with mine. A new current 
of thought has been set going in my mind. If a religion that 
I thought all formalism is capable of producing such types of 
abnegation as my dear father, then it must, too, somewhere or 
other, hold in solution all those ennobling ingredients, all those 
stimuli to self-sacrifice, which the world calls Christian. Per¬ 
haps I have always misunderstood. We were so badly taught. 
Perhaps the prosaic epoch of Judaism into which I was born 
is only transitional, perhaps it only belongs to the middle classes, 
for I know I felt more of its poetry in my childhood; perhaps 
the future will develop (or recultivate) its diviner sides and lay 
more stress upon the life beautiful, and thus all this blind in¬ 
stinct of isolation may prove only the conservation of the race 
for its nobler future, when it may still become, in very truth, 
a witness to the Highest, a chosen people in whom all the 
families of the earth may be blessed. I do not know; all this 
is very confused and chaotic to me to-night. I only know I 
can hold out no certain hope of the earthly fulfilment of our 
love. I, too, feel in transition, and I know not to what. But, 
dearest Alfred, shall we not be living the Christian life—the 
life of abnegation — more truly if we give up the hope of per¬ 
sonal happiness? Forgive me, darling, the pain I am causing 
you, and thus help me to bear my own. 

“ Your friend till death, 

“Florence.” 

It was an hour past midnight ere the letter was 
finished, and when it was sealed a sense of relief at 
remaining in the Jewish fold stole over her, though 
she would scarcely acknowledge it to herself, and 
impatiently analyzed it away as hereditary. And 
despite it, if she slept on the letter, would it ever be 
posted ? 

But the house was sunk in darkness. She was 


Transitional 


75 


the only creature stirring. And yet she yearned to 
have the thing over, irrevocable. Perhaps she might 
venture out herself with her latch-key. There was 
a letter-box at the street corner. She lit a candle 
and stole out on the landing, casting a monstrous 
shadow which frightened her. In her over-wrought 
mood it almost seemed an uncanny creature grinning 
at her. Her mother’s death-bed rose suddenly be¬ 
fore her; her mother’s voice cried: “Ah, Florrie, 
do not fret. I will find thee a bridegroom.’’ Was 
this the bridegroom — was this the only one she 
would ever know ? 

“Father! father!’’ she shrieked, with sudden 
terror. 

A door was thrown open; a figure shambled forth 
in carpet slippers — a dear, homely, reassuring figure 
— holding the coloured handkerchief which had helped 
to banish him from the drawing-room. His face was 
smeared; his eyelids under the pushed-up horn spec¬ 
tacles were red: he, too, had kept vigil. 

“ What is it ? What is it, little Schnapsie ? ” 

“Nothing. I — I — I only wanted to ask you if 
you would be good enough to post this letter — to¬ 
night.” 

“Good enough? Why, I shall enjoy a breath of 
air.” 

He took the letter and essayed a roguish laugh 
as his eye caught the superscription. 

“ Ho ! ho ! ” He pinched her cheek. “ So we 


76 


TRANSITIONAL 


mustn’t let a day pass without writing to him, 
eh ? ” 

She quivered under this unforeseen misconception. 

“No,” she echoed, with added firmness, “we 
mustn’t let a day pass.” 

“ But go to bed at once, little Schnapsie. You 
look quite pale. If you stay up so late writing him 
letters, you won’t make him a beautiful bride.” 

“No,” she repeated, “I won’t make him a beauti¬ 
ful bride.” 

She heard the hall door close gently upon his 
cautious footsteps, and her eyes dimmed with divine 
tears as she thought of the joy that awaited his re¬ 
turn 



* 


III 


NOAH’S ARK 







Ill 


NOAH’S ARK 

I 

On a summer’s day toward the close of the first 
quarter of the nineteenth century after Christ, Peloni 
walked in “the good place ” of the Frankfort Juden- 
gasse and pondered. At times he came to a stand¬ 
still and appeared to study the inscriptions on the 
tumbled tombstones, or the carven dragons, shields, 
and stars, but his black eyes burnt inward and he 
saw less the tragedy of Jewish death than the tragedy 
of Jewish life. 

For “the good place” was the place of death. 

Here alone in Frankfort — in this shut-in bit of 
the shut-in Jew-street — was true peace for Israel. 
The rest of the Jew-street offered comparative tran¬ 
quillity even for the living ; yet when, ninety years 
before Peloni was born, the great fire had raged 
therein, the inhabitants had locked the Ghetto-gate 
against the Christians, less fearful of the ravaging 
flames than of their fellow-citizens. Even to-day, 
if he ventured outside the Judengasse , Peloni must 
tread delicately. The foot-path was not for him : 
he must plod on the dusty road, with all the other 
79 


80 


NOAH'S ARK 


beasts. In some places the very road was too holy 
for him, and any passer-by might snatch off his hat 
in punishment for his breaking bounds. The ragged 
street urchin or the staggering drunkard might cry 
to him “‘Judy mack mores: Jew, mind your man¬ 
ners.” 

Some ten years ago the Frankfort Ghetto had 
been verbally abolished by a civilized archduke, 
caught up in the wave of Napoleonic toleration. 
Peloni had shared in the exultation of the Jews at 
the final dissipation of the long night of mediaeval- 
ism. He had written a Hebrew poem on it, brill¬ 
iantly rhymed, congested with apt quotations from 
Bible and Talmud, the whole making an acrostic 
upon the name of the enlightened Karl Theodor von 
Dalberg. Henceforth Israel would take his place 
among the peoples, honour on his brow, love in his 
heart, manhood in his limbs. A gracious letter of 
acknowledgment from the archduke was displayed in 
the window of Peloni’s little bookselling establish¬ 
ment, amid the door-amulets, phylacteries, praying- 
shawls, Purim-scrolls, and Hebrew volumes. 

But now the prince had been ousted, Napoleon 
was dead, everywhere the Ghetto-gates were locked 
again, and the Poem lay stacked on the remainder 
shelves. In vain had the grateful Jews hastened to 
fight for the Fatherland, tendered it body and soul. 
Poor little curly-haired Peloni had been attacked in 
the streets as an alien that very morning. Roysterers 



NOAH'S ARK 


81 


had raised the old cry of “Hep! Hep!” — fatal, 
immemorial cry, ghastly heritage of the Crusades. 
Century after century that cry had gone echoing 
through Europe. Century after century the Jews 
thought they had lived it down, bought it down, died 
it down. But no! it rose again, buoyant, menacing, 
irresponsible. Ah, what a fool he had been to hope! 
There was no hope. 

Rarely, indeed, since the Dark Ages had persecu¬ 
tion flaunted itself so openly. Riots and massacres 
were breaking out all over Germany, and in his own 
Ghetto Peloni had seen sights that had turned his 
patriotism to gall, and crushed his trust in the Chris¬ 
tian, his beautiful bubble-dreams of the Millennium. 
Rothschild himself, whose house in the Judengasse 
with the sign of the red shield had been the centre 
of the attack, was well-nigh unable to maintain his 
position in the town. And these local successes in¬ 
flamed the Jew-haters everywhere. “Let the chil¬ 
dren of Israel be sold to the English,” recommended 
a popular pamphlet of the period, “who could em¬ 
ploy them in their Indian plantations instead of the 
blacks. The best plan would be to purge the land 
entirely of this vermin, either by exterminating them, 
or, as Pharaoh, and the people of Meiningen, Wurz¬ 
burg, and Frankfort did, by driving them from the 
country.” 

“ Oh, God! ” thought Peloni, as his mind ran over 
the long chain from Pharaoh to Frankfort. “Ever- 



82 


NOAH'S ARK 


more to wander, stoned and derided! Thou hast set 
a mark on his forehead, but his punishment is greater 
than he can bear.” 

The dead lay all around him, one upon another, 
new red stones shouldering aside the gray stones 
that told to boot of the death of the centuries. And 
the pressure of all this struggle for death-room had 
raised the earth higher than the adjacent paths. He 
thought of how these dead had always come here; 
even in their lifetime, when the enemy raged out¬ 
side. Here they had put the women and children 
and gone back to the synagogue to pray. Ah, the 
cowards! always oscillating betwixt cemetery and 
synagogue, why did they not live, why did they not 
tight? Yes, but they had fought, — fought for Ger¬ 
many, and this was Germany’s reply. 

But could they not fight for themselves then, with 
money, with the sinews of war, if not with the weap¬ 
ons ; with gold, if not with steel ? could they not join 
financial forces all through the world ? But no ! There 
was no such solidarity as the Christians dreamed. 
And they were too mixed up with the European 
world to dream of self-concentration. Even while 
the Frankfort Rothschild’s house was surrounded 
by rioters, the Paris Rothschild was giving a ball 
to the elite of diplomatic society. 

No! the old Jews were right — there was only the 
synagogue and the cemetery. 

But was there even the synagogue ? That, too, 



NOAH'S ARK 


83 


was dead. The living faith, the vivid realization of 
Israel’s hope, which had made the Dark Ages en¬ 
durable and even luminous, were only to be found 
now among fanatics whose blind ignorance and fierce 
clinging to the dead letter and the obsolete form 
counterbalanced the poetry and sublimity of their 
persistence. In the Middle Ages, Peloni felt, his 
poems would have been absorbed into the liturgy. 
For when the liturgy and the religion were alive, 
they took in and gave out — like all living things. 
But no — the synagogue of to-day was dead. 

Remained only the cemetery. 

“ Jude , verrek ! ” Jew, die like a beast. 

Yes, what else was there to do? For he was not 
even a Rothschild, he told himself with whimsical 
anguish; only a poor poet, unread, unknown, un¬ 
healthy ; a shadow that only found substance to 
suffer; a set of heart-strings across which every wind 
that blew made a poignant, passionate music; a 
lamentation incarnate, a voice of weeping in the 
wilderness, a bubble blown of tears, a dream, a mist, 
a nobody, — in short, Peloni! 

The dead generations drew him. He fell, weep¬ 
ing passionately, upon a tomb. 

II 

There seemed an unwonted stir in the Judengasse 
when Peloni returned to it. Was there another riot 


84 


NOAH'S ARK 


threatening ? he thought, as he passed along the nar¬ 
row street of three-storied frame houses, most of 
them gabled, and all marked by peculiar signs and 
figures — the Bear or the Lion or the Garlic or the 
Red Shield ( Rothschild ) ! 

Outside the synagogue loitered a crowd, and as he 
drew near he perceived that there was a long Procla¬ 
mation in a couple of folio sheets nailed on the door. 
It was doubtless this which was being discussed by 
the little groups he had already noted. About the 
synagogue door the throng was so thick that he 
could not get near enough to read it himself. But 
fortunately some one was engaged in reading it aloud 
for the benefit of those on the outskirts. 

“ ‘Wherefore I, Mordecai Manuel Noah, Citizen of 
the United States of America, late Consul of said 
States to the City and Kingdom of Tunis, High 
Sheriff of New York, Counsellor-at-Law, and by the 
Grace of God Governor and Judge of Israel, have 
issued this my proclamation. ’ ” 

A derisive laugh from a dwarfish figure in the 
crowd interrupted the reading. “ Father Noah come 
to life again! ” It was the Possemacher , or wed- 
ding-jester, who was not sparing of his wit, even 
when not professionally engaged. 

“A foreigner — an American!” sneered a more 
serious voice. “ Who made him ruler in Israel ? ” 
“That’s what the wicked Israelite asked Moses ! ” 
cried Peloni, curiously excited. 





NOAH'S ARK 


85 


“ Nun> nun ! Go on ! ” cried others. 

“‘Announcing to the Jews throughout the world, 
that an asylum is prepared and hereby offered to 
them, where they can enjoy that Peace, Comfort, and 
Happiness which have been denied them through 
the intolerance and misgovernment of former ages. 
An asylum in a free and powerful country, where 
ample protection is secured to their persons, their 
property, and religious rights; an asylum in a coun¬ 
try remarkable for its vast resources, the richness of 
its soil, and the salubrity of its climate; where indus¬ 
try is encouraged, education promoted, and good 
faith rewarded. “ A land of Milk and Honey,” where 
Israel may repose in Peace, under his “Vine and Fig 
tree,” and where our People may so familiarize them¬ 
selves with the science of government and the lights 
of learning and civilization, as may qualify them for 
that great and final Restoration to their ancient heri¬ 
tage, which the times so powerfully indicate.’ ” 

The crowd had grown attentive. Peloni’s face 
was pale as death. What was this great thing, fallen 
so unexpectedly from the impassive heaven his hope¬ 
lessness had challenged ? 

But the Possemacher captured the moment. 
“Father Noah’s drunk again!” 

A great laugh shook the crowd. But Peloni dug 
his nails into his palms. “ Read on ! Read on! ” 
he cried hoarsely. 

“‘The Place of Refuge is in the State of New 


86 


NOAH'S ARK 


York, the largest in the American Union, and the 
spot to which I invite my beloved People from the 
whole world is called Grand Island.’ ” 

Peloni drew a deep breath. His face had now 
changed to the other extreme and was flushed with 
excitement. 

“ Noah’s Ark! ” shot the Possemacher dryly, and 
had his audience swaying hysterically. 

“ For God’s sake, brethren ! ” cried Peloni. “ This 
is no joke. Have you forgotten already that here 
we are only animals ? ” 

“ And they went in two by two,” said the Posse - 
macher , “ the clean beasts, and the unclean beasts ! ” 

“ Hush, hush, let us hear ! ” from some of the 
crowd. 

“‘Here I am resolved to lay the foundation of a 
State, named Ararat.’ ” 

“Ah ! what did I say ?” the exultant Possemacher 
shrieked at Peloni. 

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed the crowd. “Noah’s 
Ark resting on Ararat! ” The dullest saw that. 

Peloni was taken aback for a moment. 

“ But why should not the place of Israel’s Ark of 
Refuge be named Ararat?” he asked of his neigh¬ 
bours. 

“ If only his name wasn’t Noah ! ” they answered. 

“That makes it even more appropriate,” he mur¬ 
mured. 

But “ Noah’s Ark ” was the nickname that kills. 





NOAH'S ARK 


87 


Though the reader continued, it was only to an audi¬ 
ence exhilarated by a sense of Arabian Nights fan¬ 
tasy. But the elaborate description of the grandeurs 
of this Grand Island, and the eloquent passages 
about the Century of Right, and the ancient Oracles, 
restored Peloni’s enthusiasm to fever heat. 

“ It is too long,” said the reader, wearying at last. 

Peloni rushed forward and took up the task. The 
first sentence exalted him still further. 

“ ‘ In God’s name I revive, renew, and reestablish 
the government of the Jewish Nation, under the 
auspices and protection of the Constitution and the 
Laws of the United States, confirming and perpetu¬ 
ating all our Rights and Privileges, our Name, our 
Rank, and our Power among the nations of the 
Earth, as they existed and were recognized under the 
government of the Judges of Israel.’ ” Peloni’s 
voice shook with fervour. As he began the next sen¬ 
tence, “ ‘ It is my will,’ ” he stretched out his hand 
with an involuntary regal gesture. The spirit of 
Noah was entering into him, and he felt almost as if 
it was he who was re-creating the Jewish nation — 
“ ‘ It is my will that a Census of the Jews throughout 
the world be taken, that those who are well treated 
and wish to remain in their respective countries shall 
aid those who wish to go; that those who are in mili¬ 
tary service shall until further orders remain true 
and loyal to their rulers. 

“ ‘ I command ’ ” — Peloni read the words with ex- 


88 


NOAH'S ARK 


pansive magnificence, his poet’s soul vibrating to 
that other royal dreamer’s across the great Atlantic 
— “‘that a strict Neutrality be maintained in the 
pending war betwixt Greece and Turkey. 

“ ‘ I abolish forever ’ ” — Peloni’s hand swept the 
air, — “ ‘ Polygamy among the Jews.’ ” 

“ But where have we polygamy ? ” interrupted the 
Possemacher. 

“‘As it*is still practised in Africa and Asia,’” 
read on Peloni severely. 

“ I’m off at once for Africa and Asia! ” cried the 
marriage-jester, pretending to run. “ Good business 
for me there.” 

“You’ll find better business in America,” said 
Peloni scathingly. “ For do not all our Austrian 
young men fly thither to marry, seeing that at home 
only the eldest son may found a family ? A pretty 
fatherland indeed to be a citizen of — a step-father¬ 
land. Listen, on the contrary, to the nobl,e tolerance 
of the Jew. ‘ Christians are freely invited.’ ” 

“ Ah ! Do you know who’ll go ? ” broke in a 
narrow-faced zealot. “ The missionaries.” 

Peloni continued hastily: “ ‘ Ararat is open, too, 
to the Caraites and the Samaritans. The Black 
Jews of India and Africa shall be welcome; our 
brethren in Cochin-China and the sect on the coast 
of Malabar; all are welcome.’ ” 

“Ha! ha ! ha ! ” laughed a^burly Jew. “ So we’re 
to live with the blacks. Enough of this joke ! ” 





NOAH'S ARK 


89 


But Peloni went on solemnly: “ ‘ A Capitation- 
tax on every Jew of Three Silver Shekels per 
annum — ’ ” 

“ Ah, now we have got to it! ” and a great roar 
broke from the crowd. “ Not a bad Geschaft , eh ? ” 
and they winked. “ He is no fool, this Noah.” 

Peloni’s blood boiled. “ Do you believe everybody 
is like yourselves ? ” he cried. “ Listen ! ” 

‘“I do appoint the first day of next Adar for a 
Thanksgiving Day to the God of Israel, for His 
divine protection and the fulfilment of His promises 
to the House of Israel. I recommend Peace and 
Union among ourselves, Charity and Good-will to all, 
Toleration and Liberality toward our Brethren of all 
Religions —’ ” 

“ Didn’t I say a missionary in disguise ? ” mur¬ 
mured the zealot. 

Peloni ended, with tremulous emotion : “ ‘ I humbly 
entreat to be remembered in your prayers, and ear¬ 
nestly do I enjoin you to “ keep the charge of the 
Holy God,” to walk in His ways, to keep His 
Statutes and His commandments and His judg¬ 
ments and Testimonies, as written in the Laws of 
Moses; “that thou mayest prosper in all thou doest 
and whithersoever thou turnest thyself.” 

“ ‘ Given under our hand and seal in the State of 
New York, on the 2d of Ab 5586 in the Fiftieth 
Year of American Independence.’ ” 


90 


NOAH'S ARK 


Peloni’s efforts to organize a company of pilgrims 
to the New Jerusalem brought him only heart-ache. 
The very rabbi who had good-naturedly consented to 
circulate the fantastic foreigner’s invitation, tapped 
his forehead significantly: “ A visionary! of good 
intentions, doubtless, but still — a visionary. Be¬ 
sides, according to our dogmas, God alone knows 
the epoch of the Israelitish restoration; He alone 
will make it known to the whole universe, by signs 
entirely unequivocal; and every attempt on our part 
to reassemble with any political, national design, is 
forbidden as an act of high treason against the 
Divine Majesty. Mr. Noah has doubtless forgotten 
that the Israelites, faithful to the principles of their 
belief, are too much attached to the countries where 
they dwell, and devoted to the governments under 
which they enjoy liberty and protection, not to treat 
as a mere jest the chimerical consulate of a pseudo¬ 
restorer.” 

“ Noah’s a madman, and you’re an infant,” Peloni’s 
friends told him. 

“Since the destruction of the Temple,” he quoted 
in retort, “ the gift of prophecy has been confined to 
children and fools.” 

“You are giving up a decent livelihood,” they 
warned him. “You are throwing it into the 
Atlantic.” 

“ ‘ Cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall 
return to thee after many days.’ ” 


NOAH'S ARK 


91 


“ But in the meantime ? ” 

“ ‘ Man doth not live by bread alone.’ ” 

“As you please. But don’t ask us to throw up 
our comfortable home here.” 

“Comfortable home!” and Peloni grew almost 
apoplectic as he reminded them of their miseries. 

“ Persecution ? ” They shrugged their shoulders. 
“ It comes only now and again, like a snow-storm, 
and we crawl through it.” 

“That’s just it — the lack of manliness — the 
poisoned atmosphere! ” 

“ Bah ! The Goyirn refuse us equal rights because- 
they know we’re their superiors. Let us not jump 
from the frying-pan into the fire.” 

So Peloni sailed for New York alone. 

Ill 

He was rather disappointed to find no other pil¬ 
grim even on the ship. True, there was one Jew, 
but the business Paradise of New York was his goal 
across this waste of waters, and of Noah’s Ark he 
had never heard. Peloni’s panegyric of Grand 
Island was rendered ineffective by his own nebu¬ 
lous conception of its commercial possibilities. He 
passed the slow days in the sailing-vessel polishing 
up his English, the literature of which he had long 
studied. 

In New York Peloni’s hopes revived. Major 


92 


NOAH’S ARK 


Noah — for it appeared he was an officer of militia 
likewise — was in everybody’s mouth. Editor of 
the National Advocate , the leading organ of the 
Bucktails, or Tammany party, a journalist whose 
clever sallies and humorous paragraphs were widely 
enjoyed, an author of excellent “Travels,” a play¬ 
wright of the first distinction, whose patriotic dramas 
were always given on the Fourth of July, a critic 
regarded as Sir Oracle, a politician, lawyer, and man 
of the world, a wit, the gay centre of every gather¬ 
ing— surely in this lion of New York, who was also 
the Lion of David, Israel had at last found a de¬ 
liverer. They called him madman down in Frank¬ 
fort, did they ? Well, let them come here and see. 

He wrote home to the scoffers of the Judengasse 
all the information about the great man that was in 
the very air of the American city, though the man 
himself he had only as yet corresponded with. He 
told the famous story of how when Noah was can¬ 
vassing for the office of High Sheriff of New York, 
it was urged that no Jew should be put into an office 
where he might have to hang a Christian, to which 
Noah had retorted wittily, “ Pretty Christian, to 
have to be hanged! ” “ And you all fancied 

‘Father Noah’ would fall to pieces before the 
Possemacher's wit!” Peloni commented with venge¬ 
ful satisfaction. “ I rejoice *to say that Noah will 
never have anything to do with a Possemacher , for 
he is President of the Old Bachelors’ Club, the mem- 


NOAH'S ARK 


93 


bers of which are pledged never to marry.” He told 
of Noah’s adventurous career : of how when he was 
a mere boy clerk in the auditor’s office of his native 
Philadelphia, Congress had voted him a hundred 
dollars for his precocious preparation of the actuary 
tables for the eight-per-cent loan ; of the three duels 
at Charleston, in which he had vindicated at once 
the courage of the Jew and the policy of American 
resistance to Great Britain; of his consulate in Tunis, 
his capture at sea by the British fleet during the war, 
his release on parole that enabled him to travel about 
England; of his genius for letters — a very David in 
Israel; of his generosity to hundreds of strugglers ; 
of his quixotic disdain of money; of his impoverish¬ 
ing himself by paying two hundred thousand dollars 
of other people’s debts as the price of his impulsive 
shrieval action in throwing open the doors of the 
Debtor’s Jail when the yellow fever broke out within. 
“Yes,” wrote Peloni exultantly, “in New York they 
talk no more of Shylock. And with all the tempta¬ 
tions to Christian fellowship or Pagan free-living, a 
pillar of the synagogue,—nay, Israel’s one hope in 
all the world ! ” 

It was a wonderful moment when Peloni, at last 
invited to call on the Judge of Israel, palpitated on 
the threshold of his study and gazed blinkingly at 
the great man enthroned before his writing-table 
amid elegant vistas of books and paintings. What 
a noble poetic vision it seemed to him : the broad 


94 


NOAH'S ARK 


brow, with the tumbled hair; the long, delicate-fea¬ 
tured face tapering to a narrow chin environed with 
whiskers, but clean of beard or even of mustache, 
so that the mobile, sensitive mouth was laid bare. 
Peloni’s glance also took in a handsome black coat, 
with a decoration on the lapel, a high-peaked collar, 
a black puffy bow, a frilled shirt, and a very broad 
jewelled cuff over a white, long-fingered hand, that 
held a tall quill with a great breadth of feather. 

“Ah, come in,” said the Governor of Israel, wav¬ 
ing his quill. “ You are Peloni of Frankfort.” 

“ Come three thousand miles to kiss the hem of 
your garment.” 

Noah permitted the attention. “ I am obliged to 
you for your Hebrew poem in honour of my project,” 
he said urbanely. “I approve of Hebrew — it is a 
link that binds us to our forefathers. I am myself 
editing a translation of the Book of Jasher.” 

“You will have found my verses a very poor ex¬ 
pression of your divine ideas.” 

“You use a difficult Hebrew. But the general 
drift seemed to show you had caught the greatness 
of my conception.” 

“ Ah, yes ! I have lived in a Jiidengasse , oppressed 
and derided.” 

“ But there is worse than oppression — there is 
inward stagnation of the spiritual life. My idea 
came to me in Tunis, where the Jews are little op¬ 
pressed. You know President Madison appointed 


NOAH'S ARK 


95 


me consul of the United States for the city and king¬ 
dom of Tunis, one of the most respectable and inter¬ 
esting stations in the regencies of Barbary. I had 
long desired to visit the country of Dido and Hanni¬ 
bal, to trace the field of Zama, and seek out the ruins 
of Utica, — whose sites I believe I have now success¬ 
fully established, — but it was my main design to 
investigate the condition of the Barbary Jews, of 
whom, you will remember, we have no account later 
than Benjamin of Tudela’s in the thirteenth century. 
But do not stand—take a chair. Well, I found our 
brethren—to the number of seven hundred thousand 
— controlling everything in Barbary, farming the 
revenue, regulating the coinage, keeping the Dey’s 
jewels and almost his person, — in short, anything 
but persecuted, though, of course, the majority were 
miserably poor. They did not know I was a Jew — 
though Secretary Monroe recalled me because I was, 
and it was Monroe’s doctrine that Judaism would 
be an obstacle to the discharge of my functions. 
Absurd! The Catholic priest was allowed to sprinkle 
the Consulate with holy water : the barefooted Fran¬ 
ciscan received an alms, nor did I fail to acknowledge 
by a donation the decorated branch sent on Palm 
Sunday by the Greek Bishop. And as for the slaves, 
I assure you they were not backward in coming to 
ask favours. The only people who never came to me 
were precisely the Jews. I went about among them 
incognito, so to speak, like Haroun Alraschid among 


96 


NOAH'S ARK 


his subjects; hence I was able to see all the evils 
that will never be eliminated till Israel is again a 
nation.” ■ 

“ Ah ! your words are the words of wisdom. You 
touch the root of the evil. It is what I have always 
told them.” 

Noah rose to his feet, displaying a royal stature in 
harmony with his broad shoulders. “ Yes, I resolved 
it should be mine to elevate my people, to make them 
hold up their heads worthily in this century of free¬ 
dom and enlightenment.” 

“ It is the Ark of the Convenant, as well as of the 
Deluge, which will rest on Ararat! ” 

“ True — and like the first Noah, I may become 
the progenitor of a new world. I have communica¬ 
tions from the four corners of the earth. You are 
the type of thousands who will flee from the rotting 
tyrannies of Europe into the great free republic 
which I shall direct.” 

He began to pace the room. Peloni had visions 
of great black lines of pilgrims converging from 
every quarter of the compass. 

“ But this Grand Island — is it yours ?” he inquired 
timidly. 

“I have bought thousands of acres of it—I and 
a few others who believe in the great future of our 
people.” 

“ Jews ? ” 

“No, not Jews — capitalists who know that we 


NOAH'S ARK 


97 


shall become the commercial centre of the new world, 
— that is, of the world of the future.” 

Peloni groaned. “And Jews will not believe? 
We must go to the Gentiles. Jews will only put their 
money into Gentile schemas; will build always for 
others, never for themselves. It is the same every¬ 
where. Alas for Israel! ” 

“ It is what I preach. Why administer Barbary 
for a savage Dey when you can administer Grand 
Island for yourself ? Seven hundred thousand Jews 
in savage Barbary, and throughout these vast free 
States not seven thousand. Ah, but they will come ; 
they will come. Ararat will gather its millions.” 

“ But will there be room ? ” 

“The State of New York,” replied Noah, impres¬ 
sively, “is the largest in the Union, containing forty- 
three thousand two hundred and fourteen square 
miles divided into fifty-five counties and having six 
thousand and eighty-seven post-towns and cities 
together with six million acres of cultivated land. 
The constitution is founded on equality of rights. 
We recognize no religious differences. In our seven 
thousand free schools and gymnasia, four hundred 
thousand children of every religion are being edu¬ 
cated. Here in this great and progressive State the 
long wandering of my beloved people shall end.” 

“ But Grand Island itself ? ” murmured Peloni 
feebly. 

“Come here,” and Noah unrolled a great map. 


98 


NOAH’S ARK 


“ See, how nobly it is situated in the Niagara River, 
near the world-famed Falls, which will supply water¬ 
power for our machinery. It is twelve miles long 
and from three to seven broad, and contains seven¬ 
teen thousand acres. Lake Erie is two hundred and 
seventy miles long and borders New York, Pennsyl¬ 
vania, and Ohio, as well as Canada. And see! by 
navigable streams this great lake is connected with 
all that wonderful chain of lakes. By short canals 
we shall connect with the Illinois and Mississippi, 
and trade with New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. 
Through the Ontario — see here!—we traffic with 
Quebec, Montreal, and touch the great Atlantic. 
The Niagara Falls, as I said, turn our machinery. 
The fur trade, the lumber trade, all is ours. Our 
cattle multiply, our lands wave with harvests. We 
are the centre of the world, the capital of the future. 
And look! See what the Albany Gazette says: 
‘ Here the Hebrews can have their Jerusalem without 
fearing the legions of Titus. Here they can erect 
their Temple without dreading the torches of frenzied 
soldiers. Here they can lay their heads on their 
pillows at night without fear of mobs, of bigotry and 
persecution.’ ” 

Peloni drew a long breath, enraptured by this holy 
El Dorado, sparkling on the map, amid its tributary 
lakes and rivers. 

“You will see the eighteenth chapter of Isaiah 
fulfilled,” Noah went on. “For what is the ‘land 


NOAH'S ARK 


99 


shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of 
Ethiopia,’ which shall send messengers to a nation 
scattered and peeled ? What but America, shadow¬ 
ing us with the wings of its eagle ? As it is written 
elsewhere, ‘ I will bear thee on eagle’s wings.’ It is 
true the English Bible translates ‘ Woe to the land,’ 
but this is a mistranslation. It should be ‘ Hail to 
the land!’ Also the word ‘ goumey' they translate 
‘ bulrushes ’ — * that sendeth messengers in vessels of 
bulrushes ! ’ But does not ‘goumey ’ also mean ‘ rush, 
impetus ? ’ And is it not therefore a prophecy of 
those new steam-vessels that are beginning to creep 
up, one of which has just crossed from England to 
India ? Erelong they will be running between 
America and all the world. It is the Lord making 
ready for the easy ingathering of His people. Ay, 
and along these lakes” — the Prophet’s finger swept 
the map — “will be heard the panting of mighty 
steam-monsters, all making for Ararat. By the way, 
Ararat lies here,” and he indicated a spot of the 
island opposite Tonawanda on the mainland. 

Peloni bent down and poetically pressed his lips to 
the spot, like Jehuda Halevi kissing the holy soil. 

“ There is no one in possession there ? ” he inquired 
anxiously. 

“Maybe a few Iroquois Indians,” said Noah. 
“ But they will not have to be turned out like the 
Hittites and Amorites and Jebusites by our an¬ 
cestors.” 


100 


NOAH'S ARK 


“No?” murmured Peloni, 

“ Of course not. They are our own brothers, 
carried away by the King of Assyria. There can be 
not the slightest doubt that the Red Indians are the 
Lost Ten Tribes of Israel.” 

“ What ? ” cried Peloni, vastly excited. 

“I shall publish a book on the subject. Yes, in 
worship, dialect, language, sacrifices, marriages, 
divorces, burials, fastings, purifications, punishments, 
cities of refuge, divisions of tribes, High-Priests, wars, 
triumphs— ’tis our very tradition.” 

“ Then I suppose one could lodge with them. I 
am anxious to settle in Ararat at once.” 

“ You can scarcely settle there till the forest is 
cleared,” said the great man, arching his eyebrows. 

“The forest!” repeated Peloni, taken aback. 

“Ah, you are dismayed. You are a European, 
accustomed to ready-made cities. We Americans, 
we change continents while you wait, build up 
Aladdin’s palaces over-night. As soon as I can 
manage to go over the ground I will plan out the 
city.” 

“You haven’t been there yet?” gasped Peloni. 

“ Ah, my dear Peloni. When should I find time 
to travel all the way to Buffalo, — a busy editor, 
lawyer, playwright, what not ? True, the time that 
other men give to domestic happiness the President 
of the Old Bachelors’ Club is able to give to his 
fellow-men. But the slow canal voyage — ” 


NOAH'S ARK 


101 


At this moment there was a knock at the door, 
and a servant inquired if Major Noah could see his 
tailor. 

“Ah, a good augury!” cried the major. “Here 
is the tailor come to try on my Robe of Governor 
and Judge of Israel.” 

The man bore an elaborate robe of crimson silk 
trimmed with ermine, which he arranged about 
Noah’s portly person, making marks with pins and 
chalk where it could be made to fit better. 

“ Do you like it?” said Noah, puffing himself out 
regally. 

Peloni’s uneasiness vanished. Doubt was impos¬ 
sible before these magnificent realities. Ah! the 
Americans were wonderful. 

“ I had to go through our annals,” Noah explained, 
“to find which period of our government we could 
revive. Kingship was opposed to the sentiment of 
these States: in the epoch of the Judges I found my 
ideal. Indeed, what is the President of the United 
States but a Shophet , a Judge of Israel? Ah, you 
are looking at that painting of me — I shall have to 
be done again in my new robes. That elegant crea¬ 
ture who hangs beside me is Miss Leesugg, the Hebe 
of English actresses, as she appeared in my ‘She 
would be a Soldier, or the Plains of Chippewa.’ 
There is a caricature of my uncle, Aaron J. Phillips, 
as the Turkish Commander in my ‘ Grecian Captive.’ 
Dear me, shall I ever forget how he tumbled off that 


102 


NOAH'S ARK 


elephant! Ha! ha! ha! That is Miss Johnson, in 
my ‘Yusef Carmatti, or the Siege of Tripoli.’ The 
black and white is a fancy sketch of ‘ Marion, or the 
Hero of Lake George,’ a play I wrote for the 
reopening of the Park Theatre and to celebrate 
the evacuation of New York by the British in 
1783.” 

“Ah, I was there, Major,” said the tailor. “It 
was bully. But the house was so full- of generals 
and colonels you could hardly hear a word.” 

“Fortunately for me,” laughed Noah. “Yes, I 
asked them to come in full uniform for the eclat 
of the occasion. Which reminds me — here is a 
ticket for you.” 

“ For the play ? ” murmured Peloni, as he took it. 

Noah started and looked at him keenly. But his 
flush of anger faded before Peloni’s innocent eyes. 
“ No, no,” he explained ; “for the opening ceremony 
of the foundation of Ararat.” 

Peloni’s black eyes shone. 

“ There will be a great crush and only ticket- 
holders can be admitted into the church.” 

“ Into the church! ” echoed Peloni, paling. 

“Yes,” said the Judge of Israel impressively, as he 
stood before a glass to adjust the graceful folds of 
his crimson robe. “ Our fellow-citizens in Buffalo 
have been good enough to lend us the Episcopal 
Church for the ceremony.” 

“What ceremony?” he faltered, as horrid images 


NOAH'S ARK 


103 


swept before him, and he heard all the way from 
Frankfort the taunting cry of “ Missionary ! ” 

“The laying of the foundation-stone of Ararat.” 

“ Laying the foundation-stone in a church ! ” Peloni 
was puzzled. 

“Ah,” said the Major, misunderstanding him ; “it 
seems strange to you, nursed in the musty lap of 
Europe. But here in this land of freedom and this 
century of enlightenment all men are brothers.” 

“ But surely the foundation-stone should be laid 
on Grand Island.” 

“ It would have been desirable. But so many will 
wish to be present at this great celebration. Buffalo 
alone has some thirteen hundred inhabitants. How 
should we get them across ? There are scarcely any 
boats to be had — and Ararat is twelve miles away. 
No, no, it is better to hold our ceremony in Buffalo. 
It is, after all, only a symbolism. The corner-stone 
is already being inscribed in Hebrew and English. 
‘ Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God. Ararat, a 
City of Refuge for the Jews, founded by Mordecai 
M. Noah in the month Tishri, corresponding with 
September, 1825, in the fiftieth year of American 
Independence.’ ” 

The sonorous recitation by the Shophet in his 
crimson and ermine robe somewhat restored Peloni’s 
equanimity. 

“ But when will the actual city be begun ? ” he 
asked. 


104 


NOAH'S ARK 


The Shophet waved his hand airily. “A matter 
of days.” 

“ But are you sure we can build there ? ” 

“Look at the map. Here is Grand Island — 
ours! Here is the site of Ararat. It is all as plain 
as a pikestaff. And, talking of pikestaffs, it would 
not be a bad idea to plant a staff on Ararat with the 
flag of Israel.” 

Peloni took fire: “Yes, yes, let me go and plant 
it. I’ll journey night and day.” 

“You shall plant it,” said the Shophet graciously. 
“Yes, I’ll have the flag made at once. The property 
man at the Park Theatre will attend to it for me. 
The Lion of Judah and seven stars.” 

“ It shall be waving on Grand Island before you 
open the celebration in Buffalo.” 

Peloni went out like a lion, his head in the seven 
stars. Could it be possible that to him—Peloni — 
had fallen the privilege of proclaiming the New 
Jerusalem! 

IV 

After the bustle of New York, the scattered village 
of Buffalo was restful but somewhat chilling to the 
Ghetto-bred poet, with his quick brain, unaccustomed 
to the slow processes of nature. Buffalo — with its 
muddy, unpaved streets, and great trees, up which 
squirrel and chipmunk ran — was still half in and 
half out of mother earth; man’s artifice ruled in the 


NO Airs ARK 


105 


high street with its stores and inns, some of which 
were even of brick; but in the byways every now 
and then a primitive log cabin broke the line of 
frame cottages, and in the outskirts cows and pigs 
walked about unconcernedly. It was a reminder of 
all that would have to be done in Ararat ere a 
Temple could shine, like a lighthouse of righteous¬ 
ness to the tossing nations. But when Peloni learned 
that it was only twelve years since the scarcely 
born village had been burnt down by the British 
and Indians in the war, he felt reencouraged, warm¬ 
ing himself at the flame, so to speak. And when he 
found that the citizens were all agog about Ararat 
and the church celebration — that it divided interest 
with the Erie Canal, the hanging of the three 
Thayers, and the recent reception of General Lafay¬ 
ette at the Eagle Tavern — his heart expanded in a 
new poem. 

It was indeed an auspicious moment for Noah’s 
scheme. All eyes were turned on the coming cele¬ 
bration of the opening of the great canal, to be the 
terminus of which Buffalo had fought victoriously 
against Black Rock. Golden visions of the future 
gleamed almost tangibly; and amid the general 
magnificence Noah’s ornate dream took on equal 
solidity. Endless capital would be directed into the 
neighbourhood of Buffalo — for Ararat was only 
twelve miles away. Besides, all the great men of 
Buffalo — and there were many — had been honoured 


106 


NOAH'S ARK 


with elaborate cards of invitation to the grand cere¬ 
mony of the foundation-stone. A few old Baptist 
farmers were surly about the threatened vast Jewish 
immigration, but the majority proclaimed with right¬ 
eous warmth that the glorious American Constitution 
welcomed all creeds, and that there was money in it. 

Peloni looked about for a Jew to guide him, but 
could find none. Finally a Seneca Indian from the 
camp just below Buffalo undertook to look for the 
spot. It was with a strange thrill that Peloni’s eyes 
rested for the first time on a red Indian. Was this 
indeed a long-lost brother of his? He cried “Shalom 
Aleikhem ” in Hebrew, but the Indian, despite 
Noah’s theories, did not seem to understand. Ulti¬ 
mately the dialogue was carried on in the few 
words of broken English which the Indian had 
picked up from the trappers, and in the gesture- 
language, in which, with his genius for all lan¬ 
guages, Peloni was soon at home. And in truth 
he did find at heart some subtle sympathy with this 
copper-coloured savage which was not called out by 
the busy citizens of Buffalo. On a sunlit morning, 
bearing his flagstaff with the flag wrapped round 
it, a blanket, and a little store of provisions for 
camping out over-night, Peloni slipped into the 
birch canoe and the Indian paddled off. For miles 
they glided in silence along the sparkling Niagara, 
lone denizens of a lonely world. 

Suddenly Peloni thought of the Judengasse of 


NOAH'S ARK 


107 


Frankfort, and for a moment it seemed to him that 
he must be dreaming. What! a few short months 
ago he was selling prayer-books and phylacteries 
in the shadow of the old high-gabled houses, and 
now, in a virgin district of the New World, in 
company with a half-naked red Indian, he was 
going to plant the flag of Judah on an island 
forest and to found the New Jerusalem. What 
would they say, his old friends, if they could see 
him now? And he — the Possemacher —what 
winged jest would he let fly ? A perception of the 
monstrous fantasy of the thing stole on poor Peloni. 
Was he, perhaps, dreaming after all? No, there 
was the Niagara River, the village of Black Rock on 
his right hand, and on the other side of the gorge 
the lively Fort Erie and the poplar-fringed Cana¬ 
dian shore, and there too — on the map Noah had 
given him — Ararat lay waiting. 

The Indian paddled imperturbably, throwing back 
the sparkling water with a soft, soothing sound. 
Peloni lapsed into more pleasurable reflections. 
How beautiful was this great free place of sun and 
wind, of water and forest, after the noisome Jew- 
street! He was not dreaming, nor—thank God! — 
was Noah. Strange, indeed, that thus should de¬ 
liverance for Israel be wrought; yet what was 
Israel’s history but a series of miracles ? And his 
— Peloni’s — humble hand was to plant the flag that 
had lain folded and inglorious these twenty centuries! 


108 


NOAH'S ARK 


They glided by a couple of little islands, duly 
marked on the map, and then a great, wooded, 
dark purple mass rose to meet them with a band 
of deep orange on the low coast-line. 

It was Grand Island. 

Peloni whispered a prayer. 

Obeying the map marked by Noah, the canoe 
glided round the island, keeping to the American 
side. As they shot past a third little island, a dull 
booming began to be audible. 

“What is that?” Peloni’s face inquired. 

The Indian smiled. “ Not go many miles farther,” 
he indicated. “ The Rapids soon. Then — whizz! 
Then big jump! Niagara. Dead.” 

Fortunately Ararat was due much sooner than 
Niagara. As they drew near the fourth of the 
little islands, which lay betwixt Grand Island and 
the mainland of the States, and saw the Tona- 
wanda Creek emptying itself into the river, Peloni 
signed to the Indian to land; for it was here that 
Ararat was to arise. 

The landing was easy, the river here being shal¬ 
low and the bank low. The beauty of the spot, 
as it lay wild and fresh from God’s h.and in the 
golden sunlight, moved Peloni to tears. The In¬ 
dian, who seemed curious as to his movements and 
willing to share his mid-day meal, tied his canoe 
to a basswood tree and followed the standard- 
bearer. There was a glorious medley of leafy life — 


NOAH'S ARK 


109 


elm, oak, maple, linden, pine, wild cherry, wild 
plum — which Peloni could only rejoice in without 
differentiating it by names; and as the oddly as¬ 
sorted couple walked through the sun-dappled 
glades they startled a world of scurrying animal 
life — snipe and plover and partridges and singing- 
birds, squirrels and rabbits and even deer, that 
frisked and fluttered unprescient of the New Jeru¬ 
salem that menaced their immemorial inheritance. 
The joy of city-building had begun at last to dawn 
on Peloni, the immense pleasure to the human will 
of beginning afresh, of shaking off the pressure of 
the ages, of inscribing free ideas on the plastic 
universe. As he wandered at random in search of 
a suitable spot on which to plant the flagstaff, the 
romance of this great American world thrilled him, 
of this vast continent won acre by acre from nature 
and the savage, covering itself with splendid cities; 
a retrospective sympathy with the citizens of Buf¬ 
falo and their coming canal warmed his breast. 

Of a sudden he heard a screaming, and looking 
up he observed two strange, huge birds upon a 
blasted pine. 

“ Eagles,” said the laconic Indian. 

“Eagles!” And Peloni’s heart leaped with a 
remembrance of Noah’s words. “Here under their 
wings shall our flag be unfurled. And that blasted 
tree is Israel, that shall flourish again.” 

He dug the pole into the earth. A breeze caught 


110 


NOAH'S ARK 


the flag, and the folds flew out, and the Lion of 
Judah and the seven stars flapped in the face of an 
inattentive universe. Peloni intoned the Hebrew bene¬ 
diction, closing his eyes in pious ecstasy. “ Blessed 
art Thou, O Lord our God, who hast kept us alive, 
and preserved us, and enabled us to reach this day! ” 
As he opened his eyes, he perceived in the distance 
high in air, rising far above the Island, a great mist 
of shining spray, amid which rainbows netted and 
tangled themselves in ineffable dream-like loveliness. 
At the same instant his ear caught — over the boom 
of the rapids — the first hint of another, a mightier, 
a more majestic roar. 

“ Niagara,” murmured the Indian. 

But Peloni’s eyes were fixed on the celestial vision. 
“ The Shechinah ! ” he whispered. “ The divine 
presence that rested on the Tabernacle, and on Solo¬ 
mon’s Temple, and that has returned at last — to 
Ararat.” 


V 

The booming of cannon from the Court House, and 
from the Terrace facing the lake, saluted the bright 
September dawn and reminded the citizens of Buffalo 
that the Messianic day was here. But they needed 
no reminding. The great folk had laid out their best 
clothes; military insignia and Masonic regalia had 
been furbished up. Troops guarded St. Paul’s 
Church and kept off the swarming crowd. 


NOAH'S ARK 


111 


The first act of the great historic drama — “ Mor- 
decai Manuel Noah; or, The Redemption of Israel” 
— passed off triumphantly, to the music of patriotic 
American airs. The procession, which marched at 
eleven from the Lodge through the chief streets, did 
honour to this marshaller of stage pageants. 


ORDER OF PROCESSION 


Grand Marshal, Col. Potter, on horseback. 

Music. 

Military. 

Citizens. 

Civil Officers. 

State Officers in Uniform. 

President and Trustees of the Corporation. 

Tyler. 

Stewards. 

Entered Apprentices. 

Fellow Crafts. 

Master Masons. 

Senior and Junior Deacons. 

Secretary and Treasurer. 

Senior and Junior Wardens. 

Master of Lodges. 

Past Masters. 

Rev. Clergy. 

Stewards, with corn, wine, and oil. 

Principal Architect, 

Globe with square, level, Globe 

and plumb. 

Bible. 

Square and Compass, borne by a Master Mason. 

The Judge of Israel 

In black, wearing the judicial robes of crimson silk, trimmed 
with ermine, and a richly embossed golden 
medal suspended from the neck. 

A Master Mason. 

Royal Arch Masons. 

Knights Templars. 





112 


NOAH'S ARK 


At the church door there was a halt. The troops 
parted to right and left, the pageant passed through 
into the crowded church, gay with the summer dresses 
of the ladies, the band played the grand march from 
“Judas Maccabaeus,” the organ pealed out the “Jubi 
late.” On the communion-table lay the corner-stone 
of Ararat! 

The morning service was read by the Rev. Mr. 
Searle in full canonicals; the choir Sang “ Before 
Jehovah’s Awful Throne”; then came a special 
prayer for Ararat, and passages from Jeremiah, 
Zephaniah, and the Psalms, charged with divine 
promises and consolations for the long suffering of 
Israel, idyllic pictures of the Messianic future, sym¬ 
bolized by the silver cups with wine, corn, and oil, 
that lay on the corner-stone. At last arose, with 
that crimson silk robe trimmed with ermine thrown 
over his stately black attire, and with the richly 
embossed golden medal hanging from his neck — 
the Master of the Show, the Dramatist of the Real, 
the Humorist without a sense of Humour, the Dreamer 
of the Ghetto and American Man of Action, the Gov¬ 
ernor and Judge of Israel, the Shophet , — in brief, 
Mordecai Manuel Noah. He delivered a great dis¬ 
course on the history of Israel and its present re¬ 
organization, which filled more than five columns 
of the newspapers, and was heard with solemn atten¬ 
tion by the crowded Christian audience. Save a few 
Indians and his own secretary, not a single Jew was 


NOAH'S ARK 


113 


present to hold in check the orator’s oriental imagi¬ 
nation. Then the glittering procession filed back to 
the Lodge, and the brethren and the military dined 
joyously at the Eagle Tavern, and Noah’s wit and 
humour returned for the after-dinner speech. He 
withdrew early in order to write a full account of the 
proceedings for the Buffalo Patriot Extra. 

A salvo of twenty-four guns rounded off the great 
day of Israel’s restoration. 

VI 

Meantime Peloni on his island awaited the coming 
of its Ruler. He heard faintly the cannonade that 
preceded and concluded the laying of the foundation- 
stone in the chancel of the church, and he expected 
Noah the next day at the latest. But the next day 
passed, and no Noah. Peloni fed on the remains of 
his corn and drank from the river, but though his 
Indian guide was gone and he was a prisoner, he 
had no fear of starvation, because he saw the wig¬ 
wams of another Indian encampment across the river 
and occasionally a party of them would glide past in 
a large canoe. Despite hunger, his sensations on 
this first day were delicious. The poet in him re¬ 
sponded rapturously to the appeal of all this new 
life; to feel the brotherhood of wild creatures, to 
sleep under the stars in the vast night, to watch the 
silent, passionate beauty of the sunrise, ripening to 
the music of the birds. 


114 


NOAH’S ARK 


On the second day his eyes were gladdened by 
the oncoming of a boat rowed by two whites. They 
proved to be a stone mason and his man, and they 
bore provisions, a letter, and newspapers from 
Noah: — 

“My dear Peloni: 

“A hurried line to report a glorious success, thank Heaven! 
A finer day and more general satisfaction has not been known 
on any similar occasion. All the dignity and talent of the neigh¬ 
bourhood for miles was present. I hear that a vast concourse 
also assembled at Tonawanda, expecting that the ceremonies 
would be at Grand Island, but that many of them came up in 
carriages in time to hear my Inaugural Speech. You will see 
that the newspapers, especially the Buffalo Patriot Extra , have 
reported me fully, showing how they realize the importance of 
this world-stirring episode in Israel’s history. Their comments, 
too, are for the most part highly sympathetic. Of course the 
New York Herald will sneer; but then Bennett was once in my 
employ on the Courier and Enquirer. They tell me that you 
duly set out to plant the flag of Judah, and I assume it is now by 
God’s grace waving over Ararat. Heaven bless you ! my heart 
is too full for words. I had hoped to find time to-day to behold 
the sublime spectacle myself, but urgent legal business calls me 
back to New York. But I am resolved to start the city without 
delay, and the bearers of this have my plan for a little monument 
of brick and wood with the simple inscription — 1 Ararat founded 
by Mordecai Manuel Noah, 1825’ — from the summit of which 
the flag can wave. I leave you to superintend the same, and 
take any measures you please to promote the growth of the city 
and to receive, as my representative, the inflowing immigrants 
from the Ghettos of the world. I appoint you, moreover, Keeper 
of the Records. To you shall be given to write the new Book 
of the Chronicles of Israel. My friend Mr. Smith, one of the 
proprietors of the island, will communicate with you on behalf of 
the Shareholders, as occasion arises. Expect me shortly (per- 


NOAH’S ARK 


115 


haps with my bride, for I am entering into holy wedlock with 
the most amiable and beautiful of her sex) and meantime receive 
my blessing. 

“ Mordecai Manuel Noah, Judge of Israel, 

“pro A. B. Seixas, Seer, pro tem .” 

While the little monument was building, and the 
men were coming to and fro in boats, Peloni made 
friends with the Indians, the smoke-wreaths of whose 
lodges hovered across the river, and he picked up a 
little of their language. Also he explored his island, 
drawn by the crescendo roar of Niagara. It was at 
Burnt Island Bay that he had his first, if distant, view 
of the Falls themselves. The rapids, gurgling and 
plunging with foam and swirl and eddy, quickened 
his blood, but the cataracts disappointed him, after 
that rainbow glimpse of the upper spray, and it was 
not till he got himself landed on the Canadian shore 
and saw the monstrous rush of the vast tameless flood 
toward the great leap that he felt the presence and 
the power that were to be with him for the rest of his 
days. The bend of the Horse-Shoe was hidden by a 
white spray mountain that rose above its topmost 
waters, as they hurled themselves from green solidity 
to creamy mist. And as he looked, lo ! the enchant¬ 
ing rainbows twinkled again, and he had a sense as 
of the smile of God, of the love of that awful, un¬ 
fathomable Being, eternally persistent, while the gen¬ 
erations rise and fall like vaporous spray. 

The tide was low and, drawn by an irresistible 


116 


NOAH'S ARK 


fascination, he adventured down among the rocks 
near the foot of the Fall. But a tingling storm of 
spray smote him half blind and wholly breathless, 
and all he could see was a monstrous misty Brocken- 
spirit upreared and in his ears were a thousand thun¬ 
ders. A wild elemental passion swelled and lifted 
him. Yes, Force, Force, was the secret of things : 
the vast primal energies that sent the stars shining 
and the seas roaring. Force, Life, Strength, that 
was what Israel needed. It had grown anaemic, 
slouching along its airless Jndengassen. Oh, to fight, 
to fight, like the warriors who went out against the 
Greeks, who defended the Holy City against the 
Romans. “ For the Lord is a Man of War.” And 
he shouted the cry of David, “ Blessed be the Lord, 
my Rock, who teacheth my hands to war, and my 
fingers to fight.” But he stopped, smitten by an 
ironic memory. This very blessing was uttered every 
Sabbath twilight, in every Ghetto, by every bloodless 
worshipper, to a melancholy despairing melody, in 
the lightless dusk of the synagogues. 

The monument was speedily erected and, being 
hollow, proved useful for Peloni to sleep in, as the 
October nights grew chilly. And thus Peloni lived, 
a latter-day Crusoe. He had now procured fishing- 
tackle, and grew dexterous in luring black bass and 
perch and whitefish from the river. Also he had 
found out what berries he might eat. Occasionally 
a boat would sell him cornmeal from Buffalo, but his 


NOAH'S ARK 


117 


savings were melting away and he preferred to forage 
for himself, relishing the wild flavour of uncivilized 
living. He even wished it were possible to eat the 
birds or the rabbits he could have killed: but as 
various points of Jewish law forbade such diet, there 
was no use in buying a musket or a bow and arrow. 
So his relations with the animal world remained 
purely amicable. The robins and bluebirds and 
thrushes sang for him. The woodpeckers tapped on 
his monument to wake him in the morning. The 
blue jays screamed without wrath, and the partridges 
drummed unmartially. The squirrels frolicked with 
him, and the rabbits lost their shyness. One would 
have said these were the Lost Ten Tribes he had 
found. 

Peloni had become, not the Keeper of the Records, 
but the Keeper of Noah’s Ark. 

VII 

So winter came, and there was still nothing to re¬ 
cord, save the witchery of the muffled white world 
with its blue shadows and fantastic ice friezes and 
stalactites. Great icicles glittered on the rocks, show¬ 
ing all the hues beneath. Peloni, wrapped in his 
blanket, crouched on his monument over a log that 
burnt in an improvised grate. It was very lonely. 
He had heard from no one, neither from Noah, nor 
Smith, nor any Jewish or even Indian pilgrim to the 


118 


NOAH'S ARK 


New Jerusalem, and the stock of winter provisions 
had exhausted his little hoard of coin. The old de¬ 
spair began to twine round him like some serpent of 
ice. As he listened in such moods to the distant 
thunder of Niagara — which waxed louder as the 
air grew heavier, till it quite dominated the ever 
present rumble of the rapids — the sound took on 
endless meanings to his feverish brain. Now it was 
no longer the voice of the Eternal Being, it was the 
endless plaint of Israel beseeching the deaf heaven, 
the roar of prayer from some measureless synagogue ; 
now it was the raucous voice of persecution, the dull 
bestial roar of malicious multitudes ; and again it was 
the voice of the whole earth, groaning and travailing. 
And the horror of it was that it would not stop. It 
dropped on his brain, this falling water, as on the 
prisoner’s in the mediaeval torture chamber. Could 
no one stop this turning wheel of the world, jar it 
grindingly to a standstill ? 

Spring wore slowly round again. The icicles 
melted, the friezes dripped away, the fantastic muf¬ 
flers slipped from the trees, and the young buds 
peeped out and the young birds sang. The river 
flowed uncurdled, the cataracts fell unclogged. 

In Peloni’s breast alone the ice did not melt: no new 
sap stirred in his veins. The very rainbows on the 
leaping mist were now only reminders of the Biblical 
promise that the world would go on forever; forever 
the wheel would turn, and Israel wander homeless. 


NOAH’S ARK 


119 


And at last one sunny day a boat arrived with a 
message from the Master. Alas! even Noah had 
abandoned Ararat. “I am beginning to see,” he 
wrote, “ that our only hope is Palestine. Zion alone 
has magnetism for the Jew. The great war against 
Gog prophesied in Ezekiel will be in Palestine. Gog 
is Russia, and the Russians are the descendants of 
the joint colony of Meshech and Tubal and the little 
horn of Daniel. Russia in an attempt to wrest India 
and Turkey from the English and the Turks will make 
the Holy Land the theatre of a terrible conflict. But 
yet in the end in Jerusalem shall we reerect Solo¬ 
mon’s Temple. The ports of the Mediterranean 
will be again open to the busy hum of commerce; 
the fields will again bear the fruitful harvest, and 
Christian and Jew will together, on Mount Zion, 
raise their voices in praise of Him whose covenant 
with Abraham was to endure forever, in whose seed 
all the nations of the earth are to be blessed. This 
is our destiny.” 

Peloni wandered automatically to the apex of the 
island at Burnt Ship Bay, and stood gazing meaning- 
lessly at the fragments of the sunken ships. Before 
him raced the rapids, frenziedly anxious for the 
great leap. Even so, he thought, had Noah and 
he dreamed Israel would haste to Ararat. And 
Niagara maintained its mocking roar — its roar of 
gigantic laughter. 

Reerect Solomon’s Temple in Palestine! A 


120 


NOAH'S ARK 


ruined country to regenerate a ruined people! A 
land belonging to the Turks, centre of the fanati¬ 
cisms of three religions and countless sects! A soil 
which even to Noah was the destined theatre of 
world-shaking war! 

As he lifted his swimming eyes he saw to his 
astonishment that he was no longer alone. A tall 
majestic figure stood gazing at him: a grave, sorrow¬ 
ful Indian, feathered and tufted, habited only in 
buckskin leggings, and girdled by a belt of wam¬ 
pum. A musket in his hand showed he had been 
hunting, and a canoe Peloni now saw tethered to the 
bank indicated he was going back to his lodge. 
Peloni knew from his talks with the Tonawanda 
Indians opposite Ararat that this was Red Jacket, 
the famous chief of the Iroquois, the ancient lords 
of the soil. Peloni tendered the salute due to the 
royalty stamped on the man. Red Jacket cere¬ 
moniously acknowledged the obeisance. Then they 
gazed silently at each other, the puny, stooping 
scholar from the German Ghetto, and the stalwart, 
kingly savage. 

“Tell me,” said Red Jacket imperiously, “what 
nation are you that build a monument but never a 
city like the other white men, nor even a camp like 
my people ? ” 

“ Great Chief,” replied Peloni in his best Iroquois, 
“ we are a people that build for others.” 

“ I would ye would build for my people then. For 


NOAH'S ARK 


121 


these white men sweep us back, farther, farther, till 
there is nothing but” — and he made an eloquent 
gesture, implying the sweep into the river, into the 
jaws of the hurrying rapids. “Yet, methinks, I 
heard of a plan of your people — of a great pow¬ 
wow of your chiefs in a church, of a great city to be 
born here.” 

“It is dead before birth,” said Peloni. 

“Strange,” mused Red Jacket. “Scarce twenty 
summers ago Joseph Elliott came here to plan out 
his city on a soil that was not his, and lo ! this Buf¬ 
falo rises already mighty and menacing. To-morrow 
it will be at my wigwam door — and we” — another 
gesture, hopeless, yet full of regal dignity, rounded 
off the sentence. 

And in that instant it was borne in upon Peloni 
that they were indeed brothers: the Jew who stood 
for the world that could not be born again, and the 
Red Indian who stood for the world that must pass 
away. Yes, they were both doomed. Israel had 
been too bent and broken by the long dispersion and 
the long persecution : the spring was snapped; he 
could not recover. He had been too long the pliant 
protege of kings and popes: he had prayed too 
many centuries in too many countries for the simul¬ 
taneous welfare of too many governments, to be 
capable of realizing that government of his own 
for which he likewise prayed. This pious patience 
— this rejection of the burden on to the shoulders 


122 


NOAH'S ARK 


of Messiah and Miracle — was it more than the veil 
of unconscious impotence ? Ah, better sweep oneself 
away than endure the long ignominy. And Niagara 
laughed on. 

“ May I have the privilege of crossing in your 
canoe ?” he asked. 

“You are not afraid?” said Red Jacket. “The 
rapids are dangerous here.” 

Afraid! Peloni’s inward laughter seemed to him¬ 
self to match Niagara’s. 

When he got to the mainland, he made straight 
for the Fall. He was on the American side, and he 
paused on the sward, on the very brink of the tame¬ 
less cataract, that had for immemorial ages been 
driving itself backward by eating away its own rock. 
His fascinated eyes watched the curious smooth, 
purring slide of the vast mass of green water over 
the sharp edges, unending, unresting, the eternal 
revolution of a maddening, imperturbable wheel. 
O that blind wheel, turning, turning, while the 
generations waxed and waned, one succeeding the 
other without haste or rest or possibility of pause: 
creatures of meaningless majesty, shadows of 
shadows, dreaming of love and justice, and fading 
into the kindred mist, while this solid green cataract 
roared and raced through aeons innumerable, stable 
as the stars, thundering in majestic meaninglessness. 
And suddenly he threw himself into its remorseless 
whirl and was sucked down into the monstrous chaos 


NOAH’S ARK 


123 


of seething waters and whirled and hurled amid the 
rocks, battered and shapeless, but still holding 
Noah’s letter in his convulsively clinched hand, while 
the rainbowed spray leapt impassively heavenward. 

The corner-stone of Ararat lies in the rooms of the 
Buffalo Historical Society, and no one who copies the 
inscription dreams that it is the gravestone of Peloni. 

And while the very monument has mouldered 
away in Ararat, Buffalo sits throned amid her waters, 
the Queen City of the Empire State, with the world’s 
commerce at her feet. And from their palaces of 
Medina sandstone the Christian railroad kings go out 
to sail in their luxurious yachts, — vessels not of 
bulrushes but driven by steam, as predicted by Mor- 
decai Manuel Noah, Governor and Judge of Israel. 





























































IV 

THE LAND OF PROMISE 




























IV 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 

I 

“ Telegraph how many pieces you have.” 

In this wise did the Steamship Company convey 
to the astute agent its desire to know how many 
Russian Jews he was smuggling out of the Pale into 
the steerage of its Atlantic liner. 

The astute agent’s task was simple enough. The 
tales he told of America were only the clarification 
of a nebulous vision of the land flowing with milk 
and honey that hovered golden-rayed before all these 
hungry eyes. To the denizens of the Pale, in their 
cellars, in their gutter-streets, in their semi-sub¬ 
terranean shops consisting mainly of shutters and 
annihilating one another’s profits ; to the congested 
populations newly reinforced by the driving back of 
thousands from beyond the Pale, and yet multiplying 
still by an improvident reliance on Providence; to 
the old people pauperized by the removal of the 
vodka business to Christian hands, and the young 
people dammed back from their natural outlets by 
Pan-Slavic ukases, and dogged with whimsical edicts 
127 


128 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


and rescripts — the astute agent’s offer of getting 
you through Germany, without even a Russian pass¬ 
port, by a simple passage from Libau to New York, 
was peculiarly alluring. 

It was really almost an over-baiting of the hook 
on the part of the too astute agent to whisper that 
he had had secret information of a new thunderbolt 
about to be launched at the Pale; whereby the period 
of service for Jewish conscripts would be extended 
to fifteen years, and the area of service would be 
extended to Siberia. 

“Three hundred and seventy-seven pieces,” ran 
his telegram in reply. In a letter he suggested 
other business he might procure for the line. 

“ Confine yourself to freight,” the Company wrote 
cautiously, for even under sealed envelopes you can¬ 
not be too careful. “The more the better.” 

Freight! The word was not inexact. Did not 
even the Government reports describe these ex¬ 
ploiters of the Muzhik as in some places packed in 
their hovels like salt herrings in a barrel; as sleeping 
at night in serried masses in sties which by day were 
tallow or leather factories ? 

To be shipped as cargo came therefore natural 
enough. Nevertheless, each of these “pieces,” being 
human after all, had a history, and one of these 
histories is here told. 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


129 


II 

Nowhere was the poverty of the Pale bitterer than 
in the weavers’ colony, in which Srul betrothed him¬ 
self to Biela. The dowries, which had been wont to 
kindle so many young men’s passions, had fallen to 
freezing-point; and Biela, if she had no near prospect 
of marriage, could console herself with the know¬ 
ledge that she was romantically loved. Even the 
attraction of kest — temporary maintenance of the 
young couple by the father-in-law — was wanting in 
Biela’s case, for the simple reason that she had no 
father, both her parents having died of the effort 
to get a living. For marriage-portion and kest , 
Biela could only bring her dark beauty, and even 
that was perhaps less than it seemed. For you 
scarcely ever saw Biela apart from her homely quasi¬ 
mother, her elder sister Leah, who, like the original 
Leah, had “tender eyes,” which combined with a 
pock-marked face to ensure for her premature recog¬ 
nition as an old maid. The inflamed eyelids were 
the only legacy Leah’s father had left her. 

From Srul’s side, though his parents were living, 
came even fainter hope of the wedding-canopy. 
Srul’s father was blind — perhaps a further evidence 
that the local hygienic conditions were nocuous to 
the eye in particular — and Srul himself, who had 
occupied most of his time in learning to weave 
Rabbinic webs, had only just turned his attention to 


130 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


cloth, though Heaven was doubtless pleased with 
the gear of Gemara he had gathered in his short 
sixteen years. The old weaver had — in more than 
one sense — seen better days before his affliction and 
the great factories came on : days when the indepen¬ 
dent hand-weaver might sit busily before the loom 
from the raw dawn to the black midnight, taking 
his meals at the bench ; days when, moreover, the 
“ piece ” of satin-faced cloth was many ells shorter. 
“ But they make up for the extra length,” he would say 
with pathetic humour, “by cutting the pay shorter.” 

The same sense of humour enabled him to bear 
up against the forced rests that increasing slackness 
brought the hand-weavers, while the factories whirred 
on. “ Now is the proverb fulfilled,” he cried to his 
unsmiling wife, “for there are two Sabbaths a week.” 
Alas! as the winter grew older and colder, it became 
a week of Sabbaths. The wheels stood still; in all 
the colony not a spool was reeled. It was unpre¬ 
cedented. Gradually the factories had stolen the 
customers. Some sat waiting dazedly for the raw 
yarns they knew could no longer come at this season; 
others left the suburb in which the colony had 
drowsed from time immemorial, and sought odd 
jobs in the town, in the frowning shadows of the 
factories. But none would enter the factories them¬ 
selves, though these were ready to suck them in on 
one sole condition. 

Ah! here was the irony of the tragedy. The one 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


131 


condition was the one condition the poor weavers 
could not accept. It was open to them to reduce the 
week of Sabbaths to its ancient and diurnal dimen¬ 
sions, provided the Sabbath itself came on Sunday. 
Nay, even the working-day offered them was less, 
and the wage was more than their own. The deeper 
irony within this irony was that the proprietor of 
every one of these factories was a brother in Israel! 
Jeshurun grown fat and kicking. 

Even the old blind man’s composure deserted him 
when it began to be borne in on his darkness that 
the younger weavers meditated surrender. The 
latent explosives generated through the years by 
their perusal of un-Jewish books in insidious “Yid¬ 
dish ’’ versions, now bade fair to be touched to erup¬ 
tion by this paraded prosperity of wickedness; wick¬ 
edness that had even discarded the caftan and shaved 
the corners of its beard. 

“ But thou, apple of my eye,” the old man said to 
Srul, “thou wilt die rather than break the Sabbath?” 

“ Father,” quoted the youth, with a shuddering 
emotion at the bare idea, “ I have been young and 
now I am old, but never have I seen the righteous 
forsaken, nor his seed begging for bread.” 

“ My son! A true spark of the Patriarchs! ” 
And the old man clasped the boy to his arms and 
kissed him on the pious cheeks down which the ear- 
locks dangled. 

“But if Biela should tempt thee, so that thou 


132 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


couldst have the wherewithal to marry her,” put in 
his mother, who could not keep her thoughts off 
grandchildren. 

“ Not for apples of gold, mother, will I enter the 
service of these serpents.” 

“ Nevertheless, Biela is fair to see, and thou art 
getting on in years,” murmured the mother. 

“ Leah would not give Biela to a Sabbath-breaker,” 
said the old man reassuringly. 

“ Yes, but suppose she gives her to a bread-winner,” 
persisted the mother. “ Do not forget that Biela is 
already fifteen, only a year younger than thyself.” 

But Leah kept firm to the troth she had plighted 
on behalf of Biela, even though the young man’s 
family sank lower and lower, till it was at last reduced 
from the little suburban wooden cottage, with the 
spacious courtyard, to one corner of a large town- 
cellar, whose population became amphibious when 
the Vistula overflowed. 

And Srul kept firm to the troth Israel had plighted 
with the Sabbath-bride, even when his father’s heart 
no longer beat, so could not be broken. The old 
man remained to the last the most cheerful denizen 
of the cellar: perhaps because he was spared the 
vision of his emaciated fellow-troglodytes. He called 
the cellar “ Arba Kanf6s,” after the four-cornered 
garment of fringes which he wore : and sometimes 
he said these were the “ Four Corners ” from which, 
according to the Prophets, God would gather Israel. 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


133 


III 

In such a state of things an agent scarcely needed 
to be astute. “ Pieces ” were to be had for the pick¬ 
ing up. The only trouble was that they were not 
gold pieces. The idle weavers could not defray the 
passage-money, still less the agent’s commission for 
smuggling them through. 

“ If I only had a few hundred roubles,” Srul 
lamented to Leah, “ I could get to a land where there 
is work without breaking the Sabbath, a land to 
which Biela could follow me when I waxed in sub¬ 
stance.” 

Leah supported her household of three — for there 
was a younger sister, Tsirrele, who, being only nine, 
did not count except at meal-times — on the price of 
her piece-work at the Christian umbrella factory, 
where, by a considerate Russian law, she could work 
on Sunday, though the Christians might not. Thus 
she earned, by literal sweating in a torrid atmosphere, 
three roubles, all except a varying number of kopecks, 
every week. And when you live largely on black 
bread and coffee, you may, in the course of years, 
save a good deal, even if you have three mouths. 
Therefore, Leah had the sum that Srul mentioned so 
wistfully, put by for a rainy day (when there should 
be no umbrellas to make). And as the sum had kept 
increasing, the notion that it might form the nucleus 
of an establishment for Biela and Srul had grown 


134 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


clearer and clearer in her mind, which it tickled de¬ 
lightfully. But the idea that now came to her of 
staking all on a possible future was agitating. 

“We might, perhaps, be able to get together the 
money,” she said tentatively. “ But — ” She 
shook her head, and the Russian proverb came to 
her lips. “ Before the sun rises the dew may destroy 
you.” 

Srul plunged into an eager recapitulation of the 
agent’s assurances. And before the eyes of both the 
marriage-canopy reared itself splendid in the Land 
of Promise, and the figure of Biela flitted, crowned 
with the bridal wreath. 

“ But what will become of your mother ? ” Leah 
asked. 

Srul’s soap-bubbles collapsed. He had forgotten 
for the moment that he had a mother. 

“ She might come to live with us,” Leah hastened 
to suggest, seeing his o’erclouded face. 

“Ah, no, that would be too much of a burden. 
And Tsirrele, too, is growing up.” 

“Tsirrele eats quite as much now as she will in 
ten years’ time,” said Leah, laughing, as she thought 
fondly of her dear, beautiful little one, her gay whim¬ 
sies and odd caprices. 

“ And my mother does not eat very much,” said 
Srul, wavering. 

In this way Srul became a “piece,” and was 
dumped down in the Land of Promise. 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


135 


IV 

To the four females left behind — odd fragments of 
two families thrown into an odder one — the move¬ 
ments of the particular piece, Srul, were the chief 
interest of existence. The life in the three-roomed 
wooden cottage soon fell into a routine, Leah going 
daily to the tropical factory, Biela doing the house¬ 
work and dreaming of her lover, little Tsirrel6 frisk¬ 
ing about and chattering like the squirrel she was, 
and Srul’s mother dozing and criticising and yearning 
for her lost son and her unborn grandchildren. By 
the time Srul’s first letter, with its exciting pictorial 
stamp, arrived from the Land of Promise, the house¬ 
hold seemed to have been established on this basis 
from time immemorial. 

“ I had a lucky escape, God be thanked,” Srul 
wrote. “For when I arrived in New York I' had 
only fifty-one roubles in my pocket. Now it seems 
that these rich Americans are so afraid of being over¬ 
loaded with paupers that they will not let you in, if 
you have less than fifty dollars, unless you can prove 
you are sure to prosper. And a dollar, my dear 
Biela, is a good deal more than a rouble. However, 
blessed be the Highest One, I learned of this ukase 
just the day before we arrived, and was able to 
borrow the difference from a fellow-passenger, who 
lent me the money to show the Commissioners. Of 
course, I had to give it back as soon as I was passed, 


136 


THE LA/VD OF PROMISE 


and as I had to pay him five roubles for the use of 
it, I set foot on the soil of freedom with only forty- 
six. However, it was well worth it; for just think, 
beloved Biela, if I had been shipped back and all 
that money wasted ! The interpreter also said to me, 

‘ I suppose you have got some work to do here ? ’ 

‘ I wish I had,’ I said. No sooner had the truth 
slipped out than my heart seemed turned to ice, for I 
feared they would reject me after all as a poor wretch 
out of work. But quite the contrary; it seemed this 
was only a trap, a snare of the fowler. Poor Camin- 
ski fell into it — you remember the red-haired weaver 
who sold his looms, to the Maggid’s brother-in-law. 
He said he had agreed to take a place in a glove 
factory. It is true, you know, that some Polish Jews 
have made a glove town in the north, so the poor 
man thought that would sound plausible. Hence 
you may expect to see Caminski’s red hair back 
again, unless he takes ship again from Libau and 
tells the truth at the second attempt. I left him 
howling in a wooden pen, and declaring he would 
kill himself rather than face his friends at home with 
the brand on his head of not being good enough for 
America. He did not understand that contract- 
labourers are not let in. Protection is the word they 
call it. Hence, I thank God that my father — his 
memory for a blessing !—taught me to make Truth 
the law of my mouth, as it is written. Verily was 
the word of the Talmud (Tractate Sabbath) fulfilled 





THE LAND OF PROMISE 


137 


at the landing-stage: ‘Falsehood cannot stay, but 
truth remains forever.’ With God’s help, I shall 
remain here all my life, for it is a land overflowing 
with milk and honey. I had almost forgotten to tell 
my dove that the voyage was hard and bitter as the 
Egyptian bondage; not because of the ocean, over 
which I passed as easily as our forefathers over the 
Red Sea, but by reason of the harshness of the over¬ 
seers, who regarded not our complaints that the meat 
was not kosher , as promised by the agent. Also the 
butter and meat plates were mixed up. I and many 
with me lived on dry bread, nor could we always get 
hot water to make coffee. When my Biela comes 
across the great waters — God send her soon — she 
must take with her salt meat of her own.” 

From the first, Srul courageously assumed that 
the meat would soon have to be packed; nay, that 
Leah might almost set about salting it at once. Even 
the slow beginnings of his profits as a peddler did 
not daunt him. “ A great country,” he wrote on 
paper stamped with the Stars and Stripes, with an 
eagle screaming on the envelope. “No special taxes 
for the Jews, permission to travel where you please, 
the schools open freely to our children, no passports 
and papers at every step, above all, no conscription. 
No wonder the people call it God’s own country. 
Truly, as it is written, this is none other but the 
House of God, this is the Gate of Heaven. And 
when Biela comes, it will be Heaven.” Letters like 


138 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


this enlarged the little cottage as with an American 
room, brightened it as with a fresh wash of blue 
paint. Despite the dreary grind of the week, Sab¬ 
baths and festivals found the household joyous 
enough. The wedding-canopy of Srul and Biela 
was a beacon of light for all four, which made life 
livable as they struggled toward it. Nevertheless, 
it came but slowly to meet them : nearly three years 
oozed by before Srul began to lift his eye toward a 
store. The hereditary weaver of business combina¬ 
tions had emerged tardily from beneath the logic- 
weaver and the cloth-weaver, but of late he had been 
finding himself. “ If I could only get together five 
hundred dollars clear,” he wrote to Leah. “ For 
that is all I should have to pay down for a ladies’ 
store near Broadway, and just at the foot of the 
stairs of the Elevated Railway. What a pity I have 
only four hundred and thirty-five dollars! Stock 
and goodwill, and only five hundred dollars cash! 
The other five hundred could stand over at five per 
cent. If I were once in the store I could gradually 
get some of the rooms above (there is already a 
parlour, in which I shall sleep), and then, as soon as 
I was making a regular profit, I could send Biela 
and mother their passage-money, and my wife could 
help ‘the boss’ behind the counter.” 

To hasten the rosy day Leah sent thirty-five 
roubles, and presently, sure enough, Srul was in 
possession, and a photograph of the store itself 





THE LAND OP PROMISE 


i39 


came over to gladden their weary eyes and dilate 
those of the neighbours. The photograph of Srul, 
which had come eighteen months before, was not so 
suited for display, since his peaked cap and his 
caftan had been replaced by a jacket and a bowler, 
and, but for the ear-locks which were still in the 
picture, he would have looked like a factory-owner. 
In return, Srul received a photograph of the four — 
taken together, for economy’s sake—Leah with her 
arm around Biela’s waist, and Tsirrele sitting in his 
mother’s lap. 

V 

But a long, wearying struggle was still before the 
new “boss,” and two years crept along, with their 
turns of luck and ill-luck, of bargains and bad debts, 
ere the visionary marriage-canopy (that seemed to 
span the Atlantic) began to stand solidly on Ameri¬ 
can soil. The third year was not half over ere Srul 
actually sent the money for Biela’s passage, together 
with a handsome “ waist ” from his stock, for her to 
wear. But Biela was too timid to embark alone with¬ 
out Srul’s mother, whose fare Srul could not yet 
manage to withdraw from his capital. Leah, of 
course, offered to advance it, but Biela refused this 
vehemently, because a new hope had begun to spring 
up in her breast. Why should she be parted from 
her family at all ? Since her marriage had been de¬ 
layed these five and a half years, a few months more 


140 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


or less could make no difference. Let Leah’s sav¬ 
ings, then, be for Leah’s passage (and Tsirrele’s) 
and to give her a start in the New World. “ It 
rains, even in America, and there are umbrella fac¬ 
tories there, too,” she urged. “You will make twice 
the living. Look at Srul! ” 

And there was a new ^fear, too, which haunted 
Biela’s aching heart, but which she dared not express 
to Leah. Leah’s eyes were getting worse. The 
temperature of the factory was a daily hurt, and 
then, too, she had read so many vilely printed Yid¬ 
dish books and papers by the light of the tallow 
candle. What if she were going blind ? What if, 
while she, Biela, was happy with Srul, Leah should 
be starving with Tsirrele ? No, they must all remain 
together: and she clung to her sister, with tears. 

To Leah the prospect of witnessing her sister’s 
happiness was so seductive that she tried to take the 
lowest estimate of her own chances of finding work 
in New York. Her savings, almost eaten up by the 
journey, could not last long, and it would be terrible 
to have to come upon Srul for help, a man with a 
wife and (if God were good) children, to say nothing 
of his old mother. No, she could not risk Tsirrele’s 
bread. 

But the increased trouble with her eyes turned her 
in favour of going, though, curiously enough, for a 
side reason quite unlike Biela’s. Leah, too, was 
afraid of a serious breakdown, though she would not 



THE LA HD OF PROMISE 


141 


hint her fears to any one else. From her miscellane¬ 
ous Yiddish reading she had gathered that miraculous 
eye-doctors lived in Konigsberg. Now a journey to 
Germany was not to be thought of; if she went to 
America, however, it could be taken en route. It 
would be a sort of saving, and few things appealed 
to Leah as much as economy. This was why, some 
four months later, the ancient furniture of the blue- 
washed cottage was sold off, and the quartette set 
their faces for America by way of Germany. The 
farewell to the home of their youth took place in the 
cemetery among the high-shouldered Hebrew-speak¬ 
ing stones. Leah and Biela passionately invoked 
the spirits of their dead parents and bade them 
watch over their children. The old woman scribbled 
Srul and Biela’s interlinked names over the flat tomb 
of a holy scholar. “ Take their names up to the 
Highest One,” she pleaded. “Entreat that their 
quiver be full, for the sake of thy righteousness.” 

More dead than alive, the four “ pieces ” with their 
bundles arrived at Hamburg. Days and nights of 
travelling, packed like “ freight ” in hard, dirty 
wooden carriages, the endless worry of passports, 
tickets, questions, hygienic inspections and processes, 
the illegal exactions of petty officials, the strange 
phantasmagoria of places and faces — all this had left 
them dazed. Only two things kept up their spirits 
— the image of Srul waiting on the Transatlantic 
wharf in hymeneal attire, and the “pooh-pooh” of 


142 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


the miraculous Konigsberg doctor, reassuring Leah 
as to her eyes. There was nothing radically the 
matter. Even the inflamed eyelids — though in¬ 
curable, because hereditary — would improve with 
care. Peasant-like, Leah craved a lotion. “ The 
sea voyage and the rest will do you more good than 
my medicines. And don’t read so much.” Not a 
groschen did Leah have to pay for the great special¬ 
ist’s services. It was the first time in her'hard life 
anybody had done anything for her for nothing, and 
her involuntary weeping over this phenomenon tended 
to hurt the very eyelids under attention. They were 
still further taxed by the kindness of the Jewish com¬ 
mittee at Hamburg, on the look-out to smooth the 
path of poor emigrants and overcome their dietary 
difficulties. But it was a crowded ship, and our 
party reverted again to “ freight.” With some of 
the other females, they were accommodated in ham¬ 
mocks swung over the very dining-tables, so that 
they must needs rise at dawn and be cleared away 
before breakfast. The hot, oily whiff of the cooking- 
engines came through the rocking doorway. Of the 
quartette, only Tsirrele escaped sea-sickness, but 
“baby ” was too accustomed to be petted and nursed 
to be able suddenly to pet and nurse, and she would 
spend hours on the slip of lower deck, peering into 
the fairy saloons which were vivified by bugle instead 
of bell, and in which beautiful people ate dishes fit 
for the saints in Heaven. By an effort of will, Leah 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


143 


soon returned to her role of factotum, but the old 
woman and Biela remained limp to the end. For¬ 
tunately, there was only one day of heavy rolling and 
battened-down hatches. For the bulk of the voyage 
the great vessel brushed the pack of waves disdain¬ 
fully aside. And one wonderful day, amid unspeak¬ 
able joy, New York arrived, preceded by a tug and 
by a boat that conveyed inquiring officials. The 
great statue of Liberty, on Bedloe’s Island, upheld 
its torch to light the new-comers’ path. Srul—there 
he is on the wharf, dear old Srul! — God bless him ! 
despite his close-cropped hair and his shaven ear- 
locks. Ah! Heaven be praised! Don’t you see 
him waving ? Ah, but we, too, must be content with 
waving. For here only the tschinovniks of the gilded 
saloon may land. The “freight” must be packed 
later into rigid gangs, according to the ship’s mani¬ 
fest, transferred to a smaller steamer and discharged 
on Ellis Island, a little beyond Bedloe’s. 

VI 

And at Ellis Island a terrible thing happened, un¬ 
foreseen—a shipwreck in the very harbour. 

As the “freight” filed slowly along the corridor- 
cages in the great bare hall, like cattle inspected at 
ports by the veterinary surgeon, it came into the 
doctor’s head that Leah’s eye-trouble was infectious. 
“ Granular lids — contagious,” he diagnosed it on 


144 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


paper. And this diagnosis was a flaming sword that 
turned every way, guarding against Leah the Land 
of Promise. 

“But it is not infectious,” she protested in her best 
German. “ It is only in the family.” 

“ So I perceive,” dryly replied America’s Guardian 
Angel, who was now examining the obvious sister 
clinging to Leah’s skirts. And in Biela, heavy-eyed 
with sickness and want of sleep, his suspicious vision 
easily discovered a reddish rim of eyelid that lent 
itself to the same fatal diagnosis, and sent her to join 
Leah in the dock of the rejected. The fresh-faced 
Tsirr^le and the wizen-faced mother of Srul passed 
unscrutinized, and even the dread clerk at the desk 
who asked questions was content with their oath that 
the wealthy Srul would support them. Srul was, 
indeed, sent for at once, as Tsirrele was too pretty 
to be let out under the mere protection of a Polish 
crone. 

When the full truth that neither she nor Biela was 
to set foot in New York burst through the daze in 
Leah’s brain, her protest grew frantic. 

“ But my sister has nothing the matter with her — 
nothing. O gnadiger Herr , have pity. The Konigs- 
berg doctor — the great doctor — told me I had no 
disease, no disease at all. And even if I have, my 
sister’s eyes are pure as the sunshine. Look, mein 
Herr , look again. See,” and she held up Biela’s eye¬ 
lids and passionately kissed the wet bewildered eyes. 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


145 


“ She is to be married, my lamb — her bridegroom 
awaits her on the wharf. Send me back, gnadiger 
Herr; I ought not to have come. But for God’s 
sake, don’t keep Biela out, don’t.” She wrung her 
hands. But the marriage card had been played too 
often in that hall of despairing dodges. “ Oh, Herr 
Doktor ,” and she kissed the coat-tail of the ship’s 
doctor, “ plead for us; speak a word for her.” 

The ship’s doctor spoke a word on his own behalf. 
It was he who had endorsed the two girls’ health-cer¬ 
tificates at Hamburg, and he would be blamed by the 
Steamship Company, which would have to ship the 
sisters back free, and even defray their expenses 
while in quarantine at the depot. He ridiculed the 
idea that the girls were suffering from anything con¬ 
tagious. But the native doctor frowned, immovable. 

Leah grew hysteric. It was the first time in her 
life she had lost her sane standpoint. “ Your own eye 
is affected,” she shrieked, her dark pock-marked face 
almost black with desperate anger, “if you cannot 
see that it is only because my sister has been weep¬ 
ing, because she is ill from the voyage. But she 
carries no infection — she is healthy as an ox, and 
her eye is the eye of an eagle! ” She was ordered 
to be silent, but she shrieked angrily, “ The German 
doctors know, but the Americans have no Bildung .” 

“ Oh, don’t, Leah,” moaned Biela, throwing her 
arms round the panting breast. “ What’s the use ? ” 
But the irrepressible Leah got an S. I. ticket of 


146 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


Special Inquiry, forced a hearing in the Commis¬ 
sioners’ Court. 

“ Let her in, kind gentlemen, and send back the 
other one. Tsirrele will go back with me. It does 
not matter about the little one.” 

The kind gentlemen on the bench were really kind, 
but America must be protected. 

“ You can take the young one and the old one both 
back with you,” the interpreter told her. “ But they 
are the only ones we can let in.” 

Leah and Biela were driven back among the damned. 
The favoured twain stood helplessly in their happier 
compartment. Even Tsirrele, the squirrel, was 
dazed. Presently the spruce Srul arrived — to find 
the expected raptures replaced by funereal misery. 
He wormed his way dizzily into the cage of the 
rejected. It was not the etiquette of the Pale to kiss 
one’s betrothed bride, but Srul stared dully at Biela 
without even touching her hand, as if the Atlantic 
already rolled again between them. Here was a 
pretty climax to the dreams of years ! 

“ My poor Srul, we must go back to Hamburg to 
be married,” faltered Biela. 

“And give up my store?” Srul wailed. “Here 
the dollar spins round. We have now what one 
names a boom. There is no land on earth like 
ours.” 

The forlornness of the others stung Leah to her 


senses. 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


147 


“ Listen, Srul,” she said hurriedly. “ It is all my 
fault, because I wanted to share in the happiness. I 
ought not to have come. If we had not been to¬ 
gether they never would have suspected Biela’s eyes 
— who would notice the little touch of inflammation 
which is the most she has ever suffered from ? She 
shall come again in another ship, all alone — for she 
knows now how to travel. Is it not so, Biela, my 
lamb ? I will see you on board, and Srul will meet 
you here, although not till you have passed the 
doctor, so that no one will have a chance of remem¬ 
bering you. It will cost a heap, alas! but I can get 
some work in Hamburg, and the Jews there have 
hearts of gold. Eh, Biela, my poor lamb?” 

“Yes, yes, Leah, you can always give yourself a 
counsel,” and Biela put her wet face to her sister’s, 
and kissed the pock-marked cheek. 

Srul acquiesced eagerly. No one remembered for 
the moment that Leah would be left alone in the 
Old World. The problem of effecting the bride’s 
entry blocked all the horizon. 

“Yes, yes,” said Srul. “The mother will look 
after Tsirrele, and in less than three weeks Biela will 
slip in.” 

“No, three weeks is too soon,” said Leah. “We 
must wait a little longer till the doctor forgets.” 

“ Oh, but I have already waited so long! ” whim¬ 
pered Srul. 

Leah’s eyes filled with sympathetic tears. “I 


148 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


ought not to have made so much fuss. Now she 
will stick in the doctor’s mind. Forgive me, dear 
Srul, I will do my best and try to make amends.” 

Leah and Biela were taken away to the hospital, 
where they remained isolated from the world till the 
steamer sailed back to Hamburg. Herein, generously 
lodged, they had ample leisure to review the situa¬ 
tion. Biela discovered that the new plan would leave 
Leah deserted, Leah remembered that -she would 
be deserting little Tsirrele. Both were agreed that 
Tsirrele must go back with them, till they bethought 
themselves that her passage would have to be paid 
for, as she was not refused. And every kopeck was 
precious now. “ Let the child stay till I get back,” 
said Biela. “ Then I will send her to you.” 

“Yes, it is best to let her stay awhile. I myself 
may be able to join you after all. I will go back to 
Konigsberg, and the great doctor will write me out 
a certificate that my affliction is not contagious.” 

At the very worst — if even Biela could not get 
in — Srul should sell his store and come back to the 
Old World. It would put off the marriage again. 
But they had waited so long. “ So let us cheer up 
after all, and thank the Lord for His mercies. We 
might all have been drowned on the voyage.” 

Thus the sisters’ pious conclusion. 

But though Srul and his mother and Tsirreld got 
on board to see them off, and Tsirrele gave graphic 
accounts of the wonders of the store and the rooms 




THE LAND OF PROMISE 


149 


prepared for the bride, to say nothing of the great 
city itself, and Srul brought Biela and Leah splendid 
specimens of his stock for their adornment, yet it 
was a horrible thing for them to go back again with¬ 
out having once trodden the sidewalks of the Land 
of Promise. And when the others were tolled off, 
as by a funeral bell, and became specks in a swaying 
crowd; when the dock receded and the cheers and 
good-byes faded, and the waving handkerchiefs be¬ 
came a blur, and the Statue of Liberty dwindled, and 
the lone waste of waters faced them once more, 
Leah’s optimism gave way, a chill sinister shadow 
fell across her new plan, some ominous intuition 
traversed her like a shudder, and she turned away 
lest Biela should see her tears. 

VII 

This despair did not last long. It was not in 
Leah’s nature to despair. But her wildest hopes 
were exceeded when she set foot again in Hamburg 
and explained her hard case to the good committee, 
and a member gave her an informal hint which was 
like a flash of light from Heaven — its answer to her 
ceaseless prayer. Ellis Island was not the only way 
of approaching the Land of Promise. You could 
go round about through Canada, where they were 
not so particular, and you could slip in by rail from 
Montreal without attracting much attention. True, 
there was the extra expense. 



150 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


Expense! Leah would have gladly parted with 
her last rouble to unite Biela with her bridegroom. 
There must be no delay. A steamer for Canada 
was waiting to sail. What a fool she had been not 
to think that out for herself! Yes, but there was 
Biela’s timidity again to consider. Travel by herself 
through this unknown Canada! And then if they 
were not so particular, why could not Leah slip 
through likewise ? 

“Yes, but my eyes are more noticeable. I might 
again do you an injury.” 

“We will separate at the landing-stage and the 
frontier. We will pretend to be strangers.” Biela’s 
wits were sharpened by the crisis. 

“Well, I can only lose the passage-money,” said 
Leah, and resolved to take the risk. She wrote a 
letter to Srul explaining the daring invasion of New 
York overland which they were to attempt, and was 
about to post it, when Biela said : — 

“ Poor Srul! And if I shall not get in after all! ” 
Leah’s face fell. 

“ True,” she pondered. “ He will have a more 
heart-breaking disappointment than before.” 

“ Let us not kindle their hopes. After all, if we 
get in, we shall only be a few days later than our 
letter. And then think of the joy of the surprise.” 

“You are right, Biela,” and Leah’s face glowed 
again with the anticipated joy of the surprise. 

The journey to Canada was longer than to the 



THE LAND OF PROMISE 


151 


States, and the “ freight ” was less companionable. 
There were fewer Jews and women, more stalwart 
shepherds, miners, and dock-labourers. When after 
eleven days, land came, it was not touched at, but 
only remained cheeringly on the horizon for the rest 
of the voyage. At last the sisters found themselves 
unmolested on one of the many wharves of Montreal. 
But they would not linger a day in this unhomely 
city. The next morning saw them, dazed and worn 
out but happy-hearted, dodging the monstrous cata¬ 
pults of the New York motor-cars, while a Polish 
porter helped them with their bundles and convoyed 
them toward Srul’s store. Ah, what ecstasy to be 
unregarded units of this free chaotic crowd. Out¬ 
side the store — what a wonderful store it was, 
larger than the largest in the weavers’ colony! — the 
sisters paused a moment to roll the coming bliss under 
their tongues. They peeped in. Ah, there is Srul 
behind the counter, waiting for customers. Ah, ah, 
he little knows what customers are waiting for him! 
They turned and kissed each other for mere joy. 

“ Draw your shawl over your face,” whispered 
Leah merrily. “ Go in and ask him if he has a 
wedding-veil.” Biela slipped in, brimming over with 
mischief and tears. 

“Yes, Miss?” said Srul, with his smartest store 
manner. 

“ I want a wedding-veil of white lace,” she said in 
Yiddish. At her voice Srul started. Biela could 



152 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


keep up the joke no longer. “ Srul, my darling 
Srul! ” she cried hysterically, her arms yearning to 
reach him across the counter. 

He drew back, pale, gasping for breath. 

“Ah, my dear ones ! ” blubbered Leah, rushing in. 
“ God has been good to you, after all.” 

“But — but — how did you get in?” he cried, 
staring. 

“ Never mind how we got in,” said Leah, every 
pock-mark glistening with smiles and tears. “ And 
where is Tsirrele — my dear little Tsirr^le ? ” 

“ She — she is out marketing, with the mother.” 

“ And the mother ? ” 

“ She is well and happy.” 

“Thank God ! ” said Leah fervently, and beckoned 
the porter with the bundles. 

“ But— but I let the room,” he said, flushing. “ I 
did not know that — I could not afford — ” 

“Never mind, we will find a room. The day is 
yet high.” She settled with the porter. 

Meantime Srul had begun playing nervously with 
a pair of scissors. He snipped a gorgeous piece of 
stuff to fragments. 

“ What are you doing ? ” said Biela at last. 

“Oh — I — ” he burst into a nervous laugh. 
“ And so you ran the blockade after all. But—but I 
expect customers every minute — we can’t talk now. 
Go inside and rest, Biela: you will find a sofa in the 
parlour. Leah, I want—I want to talk to you.” 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


153 


Leah flashed a swift glance at him as Biela, vaguely 
chilled, moved through the back door into the reviv¬ 
ifying splendours of the parlour. 

“ Something is wrong, Srul,” Leah said hoarsely. 
“ Tsirrele is not here. You feared to tell us.” 

He hung his head. “ I did my best.” 

“ She is ill — dead, perhaps! My beautiful 
angel! ” 

He opened his eyes. “ Dead ? No. Married ! ” 

“ What! To whom ? ” 

He turned a sickly white. “To me.” 

In all that long quest of the canopy, Leah had 
never come so near fainting as now. The horror of 
Ellis Island was nothing to this. That scene resurged, 
and Tsirrdle’s fresh beauty, unflecked by the voyage, 
came up luridly before her; the “baby,” whom the 
unnoted years had made a young woman of fifteen, 
while they had been aging and staling Biela. 

“But — but this will break Biela’s heart,” she 
whispered, heart-broken. 

“ How was I to know Biela would ever get in ? ” he 
said, trying to be angry. “ Was I to remain a 
bachelor all my life, breaking the Almighty’s ordi¬ 
nance ? Did I not wait and wait faithfully for Biela 
all those years ? ” 

“You could have migrated elsewhere,” she said 
faintly. 

“And ruin my connection — and starve?” His 
anger was real by now. “ Besides I have married 


154 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


into the family — it is almost the same thing. And 
the old mother is just as pleased.” 

“ Oh, she! ” and all the endured bitterness of the 
long years was in the exclamation. “All she wants 
is grandchildren.” 

“No, it isn’t,” he retorted. “Grandchildren with 
good eyes.” 

“ God forgive you,” was all the lump in Leah’s 
throat allowed her to reply. She steadied herself 
with a hand on the counter, striving to repossess her 
soul for Biela’s sake. 

A customer came in, and the tragic universe 
dwindled to a prosaic place in which ribbons existed 
in unsatisfactory shades. 

“ Of course we must go this minute,” Leah said, as 
Srul clanked the coins into the till. “ Biela cannot 
ever live here with you now.” 

“Yes, it is better so,” he assented sulkily. “Be¬ 
sides, you may as well know at once. I keep open 
on the Sabbath, and that would not have pleased 
Biela. That is another reason why it was best not to 
marry Biela. Tsirrele doesn’t seem to mind.” 

The very ruins of her world seemed toppling now. 
But this new revelation of Tsirrele’s and his own 
wickedness seemed only of a piece with the first — in¬ 
deed, went far to account for it. 

“You break the Sabbath, after all! ” 

He shrugged his shoulders. “We are not in 
Poland any longer. No dead flies here. Everybody 


THE LAND OF PROMISE 


155 


does it. Shut the store two days a week ! I should 
get left.” 

“ And you bring your mother’s gray hairs down 
with sorrow to the grave.” 

“ My mother’s gray hairs are no longer hidden by 
a stupid black Shaitel. That is all. I have ex¬ 
plained to her that America is the land of enlighten¬ 
ment and freedom. Her eyes are opened.” 

“I trust to God, your father’s—peace be upon 
him ! — are still shut! ” said Leah as she walked 
with slow steady steps into the parlour, to bear off 
her wounded lamb. 
























































































































V 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 








V 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 

I 

The older Isaac Levinsky grew, and the more he saw 
of the world after business hours, the more ashamed he 
grew of the Russian Rabbi whom Heaven had curi¬ 
ously chosen for his father. At first it seemed natural 
enough to shout and dance prayers in the stuffy little 
Spitalfields synagogue, and to receive reflected glory as 
the son and heir of the illustrious Maggid (preacher) 
whose four hour expositions of Scripture drew even 
West End pietists under the spell of their celestial 
crookedness. But early in Isaac’s English school-life 
— for cocksure philanthropists dragged the younger 
generation to anglicization — he discovered that other 
fathers did not make themselves ridiculously notice¬ 
able by retaining the gabardine, the fur cap, and the 
ear-locks of Eastern Europe: nay, that a few — O, 
enviable sons !— could scarcely be distinguished from 
the teachers themselves. 

When the guardian angels of the Ghetto appren¬ 
ticed him, in view of his talent for drawing, to a litho¬ 
graphic printer, he suffered agonies at the thought of 
his grotesque parent coming to sign the indentures. 

159 


160 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


“ You might put on a coat to-morrow,” he begged 
in Yiddish. 

The Maggid’s long black beard lifted itself slowly 
from the worm-eaten folio of the Babylonian Talmud, 
in which he was studying the tractate anent the pay¬ 
ment of the half-shekel head-tax in ancient Palestine. 
“ If he took the money from the second tithes or from 
the Sabbatical year fruit,” he was humming in his 
quaint sing-song, “ he must eat the full value of the 
same in the city of Jerusalem.” As he encountered 
his boy’s querulous face his dream city vanished, the 
glittering temple of Solomon crumbled to dust, and 
he remembered he was in exile. 

“ Put on a coat ? ” he repeated gently. “ Nay, thou 
knowest ’tis against our holy religion to appear like 
the heathen. I emigrated to England to be free to 
wear the Jewish dress, and God hath not failed to 
bless me.” 

Isaac suppressed a precocious “ Damn ! ” He had 
often heard the story of how the cruel Czar Nicholas 
had tried to make his Jews dress like Christians, so as 
insidiously to assimilate them away ; how the police 
had even pulled off the unsightly cloth-coverings of 
the shaven polls of the married women, to the secret 
delight of the pretty ones, who then let their hair grow 
in godless charm. And, mixed up with this story, 
were vaguer legends of raw recruits forced by their 
sergeants to kneel on little broken stones till they per¬ 
ceived the superiority of Christianity 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


161 


How the Maggid would have been stricken to the 
heart to know that Isaac now heard these legends 
with inverted sympathies! 

“ The blind fools ! ” thought the boy, with ever 
growing bitterness. “To fancy that religion can lie 
in clothes, almost as if it was something you could 
carry in your pockets ! But that’s where most of their 
religion does lie — in their pocket.” And he shud¬ 
dered with a vision of greasy, huckstering fanatics. 
“ And just imagine if I was sweet on a girl, having to 
see all her pretty hair cut off! As for those recruits, 
it served them right for not turning Christians. As 
if Judaism was any truer! And the old man never 
thinks of how he is torturing me — all the sharp little 
stones he makes rne kneel on.” And, looking into the 
fijture with the ambitious eye of conscious cleverness, 
he saw the paternal gabardine over-glooming his life. 

II 

One Friday evening — after Isaac had completed 
his ’prentice years—there was anxiety in the Maggid’s 
household in lieu of the Sabbath peace. Isaac’s seat 
at the board was vacant. The twisted loaves seemed 
without salt, the wine of the consecration cup with¬ 
out savour. 

The mother was full of ominous explanations. 

“Perturb not the Sabbath,” reproved the gabar- 
dined saint gently, and quoted the Talmud: “‘No 


162 TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 

man has a finger maimed but ’tis decreed from 
above.” 

“Isaac has gone to supper somewhere else,” sug¬ 
gested his little sister, Miriam. 

“Children and fools speak the truth,” said the 
Maggid, pinching her cheek. 

But they had to go to bed without seeing him, as 
though this were only a profane evening, and he 
amusing himself with the vague friends of his litho¬ 
graphic life. They waited till the candles flared out, 
and there seemed something symbolic in the gloom 
in which they groped their way upstairs. They 
were all shivering, too, for the fire had become gray 
ashes long since, the Sabbath Fire-Woman having 
made her last round at nine o’clock and they them¬ 
selves being forbidden to touch even a candlestick or 
a poker. 

The sunrise revealed to the unclosed eyes of the 
mother that her boy’s bed was empty. It also 
showed — what she might have discovered the night 
before had religion permitted her to enter his room 
with a light — that the room was empty, too : empty 
of his scattered belongings, of his books and 
sketches. 

“ God in Heaven ! ” she cried. 

Her boy had run away. 

She began to wring her hands and wail with 
oriental amplitude, and would have torn her hair 
had it not been piously replaced by a black wig, 


TO DIE IN JER USALEM 


163 


neatly parted in the middle and now grotesquely 
placid amid her agonized agitation. 

The Maggid preserved more outward calm. “ Per¬ 
haps we shall find him in synagogue,” he said, 
trembling. 

“ He has gone away, he will never come back. 
Woe is me ! ” 

“He has never missed the Sabbath service! ” the 
Maggid urged. But inwardly his heart was sick 
with the fear that she prophesied truly. This Eng¬ 
land, which had seduced many of his own congre¬ 
gants to Christian costume, had often seemed to him 
to be stealing away his son, though he had never let 
himself dwell upon the dread. His sermon that 
morning was acutely exegetical: with no more rela¬ 
tion to his own trouble than to the rest of contem¬ 
porary reality. His soul dwelt in old Jerusalem, and 
dreamed of Israel’s return thither in some vague 
millennium. When he got home he found that the 
postman had left a letter. His wife hastened to 
snatch it. 

“What dost thou?” he cried. “ Not to-day. When 
Sabbath is out.” 

“I cannot wait. It is from him — it is from 
Isaac.” 

“ Wait at least till the Fire-Woman comes to open 
it.” 

For answer the mother tore open the envelope. 
It was the boldest act of her life — her first breach 


164 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


with the traditions. The Rabbi stood paralyzed by 
it, listening, as without conscious will, to her sobbing 
delivery of its contents. 

The letter was in Hebrew (for neither parent 
could read English), and commenced abruptly, with¬ 
out date, address, or affectionate formality. “This 
is the last time I shall write the holy tongue. My 
soul is wearied to death of Jews, a blind and ungrate¬ 
ful people, who linger on when the world no longer 
hath need of them, without country of their own, 
nor will they enter into the blood of the countries 
that stretch out their hands to them. Seek not to 
find me, for I go to a new world. Blot out my name 
even as I shall blot out yours. Let it be as though 
I was never begotten.” 

The mother dropped the letter and began to 
scream hysterically. “ I who bore him ! I who bore 
him ! ” 

“ Hold thy peace! ” said the father, his limbs 
shaking but his voice firm. “ He is dead. ‘ The 
Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be 
the name of the Lord.’ To-night we will begin to 
sit the seven days’ mourning. But to-day is the 
Sabbath.” 

“ My Sabbath is over for aye. Thou hast driven 
my boy away with thy long prayers.” 

“ Nay, God hath taken him away for thy sins, 
thou godless Sabbath-breaker! Peace while I make 
the Consecration.” 


TO DTE IN JERUSALEM 


165 


“ My Isaac, my only son ! We shall say Kaddish 
(mourning-prayer) for him, but who will say Kaddish 
for us ? ” 

“ Peace while I make the Consecration ! ” 

He got through with the prayer over the wine, 
but his breakfast remained untasted. 

Ill 

Re-reading the letter, the poor parents agreed that 
the worst had happened. The allusions to “blood ” 
and “the new world” seemed unmistakable. Isaac 
had fallen under the spell of a beautiful heathen 
female ; he was marrying her in a church and emi¬ 
grating with her to America. Willy-nilly, they must 
blot him out of their lives. 

And so the years went by, over-brooded by this 
shadow of living death. The only gleam of happi¬ 
ness came when Miriam was wooed and led under the 
canopy by the President of the congregation, who 
sold haberdashery. True, he spoke English well and 
dressed like a clerk, but in these degenerate days 
one must be thankful to get a son-in-law who shuts 
his shop on the Sabbath. 

One evening, some ten years after Isaac’s dis¬ 
appearance, Miriam sat reading the weekly paper — 
which alone connected her with the world and the 
fulness thereof — when she gave a sudden cry. 

“ What is it ? ” said the haberdasher. 


166 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


“ Nothing — I thought — ” And she stared again 
at the rough cut of a head embedded in the reading 
matter. 

But no, it could not be ! 

“ Mr. Ethelred P. Wyndhurst, whose versatile 
talents have brought him such social popularity, is 
rumoured to have budded out in a new direction. 
He is said to be writing a comedy for Mrs. Donald 
O’Neill, who, it will be remembered,' sat to him 
recently for the portrait now on view at the Azure 
Art Club. The dashing comedienne will, it is stated, 
produce the play in the autumn season. Mr. Wynd- 
hurst’s smart sayings have often passed from mouth 
to mouth, but it remains to be seen whether he can 
make them come naturally from the mouths of his 
characters.” 

What had these far-away splendours to do with 
Isaac Levinsky ? With Isaac and his heathen female 
across the Atlantic ? 

And yet — and yet Ethelred P. Wyndhurst was 
like Isaac—that characteristic curve of the nose, 
those thick eyebrows! And perhaps Isaac had 
worked himself up into a portrait-painter. Why 
not ? Did not his old sketch of herself give distinc¬ 
tion to her parlour? Her heart swelled proudly at 
the idea. But no! more probably the face in print 
was roughly drawn — was only accidentally like her 
brother. She sighed and dropped the paper. 

But she could not drop the thought. It clung to 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


167 


her, wistful and demanding satisfaction. The name 
of Ethelred P. Wyndhurst, whenever it appeared in 
the paper — and it was surprising how often she 
saw it now, though she had never noticed it before — 
made her heart beat with the prospect of clews. 
She bought other papers, merely in the hope of see¬ 
ing it, and was not unfrequently rewarded. Involun¬ 
tarily, her imagination built up a picture of a brilliant 
romantic career that only needed to be signed 
“ Isaac.” She began to read theatrical and society 
journals on the sly, and developed a hidden life of 
imaginative participation in fashionable gatherings. 
And from all this mass of print the name Ethelred 
P. Wyndhurst disengaged itself with lurid brilliancy. 
The rumours of his comedy thickened. It was 
christened The Sins of Society. It was to be put 
on soon. It was not written yet. Another manager 
had bid for it. It was already in rehearsal. It was 
called The BoJiemian Boy. It would not come on 
this season. Miriam followed feverishly its contra¬ 
dictory career. And one day there was a large 
picture of Isaac ! Isaac to the life! She soared 
skywards. But it adorned an interview, and the 
interview dropped her from the clouds. Ethelred 
was born in Brazil of an English engineer and a 
Spanish beauty, who performed brilliantly on the 
violin. He had shot big game in the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains, and studied painting in Rome. 

The image of her mother playing the violin, in 


168 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


her preternaturally placid wig, brought a bitter 
smile to Miriam’s lips. And yet it was hard to give 
up Ethelred now. It seemed like losing Isaac a 
second time. And presently she reflected shrewdly 
that the wig and the gabardine wouldn’t have shown 
up well in print, that indeed Isaac in his farewell 
letter had formally renounced them, and it was 
therefore open to him to invent new parental acces¬ 
sories. Of course — fool that she was! — how could 
Ethelred P. Wyndhurst acknowledge the same child¬ 
hood as Isaac Levinsky! Yes, it might still be her 
Isaac. 

Well, she would set the doubt at rest. She knew, 
from the wide reading to which Ethelred had stimu¬ 
lated her, that authors appeared before the curtain 
on first nights. She would go to the first night of 
The Whirligig (that was the final name), and win 
either joy or mental rest. 

She made her expedition to the West End on 
the pretext of a sick friend in Bow, and waited 
many hours to gain a good point of view in the 
first row of the gallery, being too economical to 
risk more than a shilling on the possibility of re¬ 
lationship to the dramatist. 

As the play progressed, her heart sank. Though 
she understood little of the conversational para¬ 
doxes, it seemed to her — now she saw with her 
physical eye this brilliant Belgravian world, in the 
stalls as well as on the stage — that it was impos- 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


169 


sible her Isaac could be of it, still less that it could 
be Isaac’s spirit which marshalled so masterfully 
these fashionable personages through dazzling draw¬ 
ing-rooms ; and an undercurrent of satire against 
Jews who tried to get into society by bribing the 
fashionables, contributed doubly to chill her. She 
shared in the general laughter, but her laugh was 
one of hysterical excitement. 

But when at last amid tumultuous cries of “ Au¬ 
thor ! ” Isaac Levinsky really appeared, — Isaac, 
transformed almost to a fairy prince, as noble a 
figure as any in his piece, Isaac, the proved master¬ 
spirit of the show, the unchallenged treader of all 
these radiant circles, — then all Miriam’s effervescing 
emotion found vent in a sobbing cry of joy. 

“ Isaac! ” she cried, stretching out her arms 
across the gallery bar. 

But her cry was lost in the applause of the house. 

IV 

She wrote to him, care of the theatre. The first 
envelope she had to tear up because it was inad¬ 
vertently addressed to Isaac Levinsky. 

Her letter was a gush of joy at finding her dear 
Isaac, of pride in his wonderful position. Who 
would have dreamed a lithographer’s apprentice 
would arrive at leading the fashions among the 
nobility and gentry? But she had always believed 


170 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


in his talents; she had always treasured the water¬ 
colour he had made of her, and it hung in the par¬ 
lour behind the haberdasher’s shop into which she 
had married. He, too, was married, they had 
imagined, and gone to America. But perhaps he 
was married, although in England. Would he not 
tell her ? Of course, his parents had cast him out 
of their hearts, though she had heard mother call 
out his name in her sleep. But she herself thought 
of him very often, and perhaps he would let her 
come to see him. She would come very quietly 
when the grand people were not there, nor would 
she ever let out that he was a Jew, or not born 
in Brazil. Father was still pretty strong, thank 
God, but mother was rather ailing. Hoping to see 
him soon, she remained his loving Miriam. 

She waited eagerly for his answer. Day followed 
day, but none came. 

When the days passed into weeks, she began to 
lose hope; but it was not till The Whirligig , which 
she followed in the advertisement columns, was 
taken off after a briefer run than the first night 
seemed to augur, that she felt with curious con¬ 
clusiveness that her letter would go unanswered. 
Perhaps even it had miscarried. But it was now 
not difficult to hunt out Ethelred P. Wyndhurst’s 
address, and she wrote him anew. 

Still the same wounding silence. After the lapse 
of a month, she understood that what he had writ- 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


171 


ten in Hebrew was final; that he had cut himself 
free once and forever from the swaddling coils 
of gabardine, and would not be dragged back even 
within touch of its hem. She wept over her sec¬ 
ond loss of him, but the persistent thought of him 
had brought back many tender childish images, and 
it seemed incredible that she would never really 
creep into his life again. He had permanently en¬ 
larged her horizon, and she continued to follow his 
career in the papers, worshipping it as it loomed 
grandiose through her haze of ignorance. Gradu¬ 
ally she began to boast of it in her more English 
circles, and so in course of time it became known 
to all but the parents that the lost Isaac was a 
shining light in high heathendom, and a vast secret 
admiration mingled with the contempt of the Ghetto 
for Ethelred P. Wyndhurst. 

V 

In high heathendom a vast secret contempt min¬ 
gled with the admiration for Ethelred P. Wyndhurst. 
He had, it is true, a certain vogue, but behind his 
back he was called a Jew. He did not deserve the 
stigma in so far as it might have implied financial 
prosperity. His numerous talents had only availed 
to prevent one another from being seriously culti¬ 
vated. He had had a little success at first with flam¬ 
boyant pictures, badly drawn, and well paragraphed; 


172 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


he had written tender verses for music, and made 
quiet love to ugly and unhappy society ladies; he 
was an assiduous first-nighter, and was suspected of 
writing dramatic criticisms, even of his own comedy. 
And in that undefined social segment where Ken¬ 
sington and Bohemia intersect, he was a familiar 
figure (a too familiar figure, old fogies grumbled) 
with an unenviable reputation as a diner-out — for 
the sake of the dinner. 

Yet some of the people who called him “sponge” 
were not averse from imbibing his own liquids when 
he himself played the gracious host. He was ap¬ 
pearing in that r61e one Sunday evening before a 
motley assembly in his dramatically furnished studio, 
nay, he was in the very act of biting into a sandwich 
scrupulously compounded with ham, when a tele¬ 
gram was handed to him. 

“Another of those blessed actresses crying off,” 
he said. “ I wonder how they ever manage to take 
up their cues ! ” 

Then his face changed as he hurriedly crumpled 
up the pinkish paper. 

“ Mother is dying. No hope. She cries to see 
you. Have told her you are in London. Father 
consents. Come at once.— Miriam.” 

He put the crumpled paper to the gas and lit a 
new cigarette with it. 

“As I thought,” he said, smiling. “When a 
woman is an actress as well as a woman — ” 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


173 


VI 

After his wife died — vainly calling for her Isaac 
— the old Maggid was left heart-broken. It was as 
if his emotions ran in obedient harmony with the 
dictum of the Talmud : “Whoso sees his first wife’s 
death is as one who in his own day saw the Temple 
destroyed.” 

What was there for him in life now but the ruins 
of the literal Temple? He must die soon, and the 
dream that had always haunted the background of 
his life began to come now into the empty fore¬ 
ground. If he could but die in Jerusalem ! 

There was nothing of consequence for him to do 
in England. His Miriam was married and had grown 
too English for any real communion. True, his con¬ 
gregation was dear to him, but he felt his powers 
waning: other Maggidim were arising who could 
speak longer. 

To see and kiss the sacred soil, to fall prostrate 
where once the Temple had stood, to die in an ecs¬ 
tasy that was already Gan-Iden (Paradise)—could 
life, indeed, hold such bliss for him, life that had 
hitherto proved a cup of such bitters ? 

Life was not worth living, he agreed with his long- 
vanished brother-Rabbis in ancient Babylon, it was 
only a burden to be borne nobly. But if life was not 
worth living, death — in Jerusalem—was worth dy¬ 
ing. Jerusalem! to which he had turned three 


174 


TO DIE IN JER USALEM 


times a day in praying, whose name was written on 
his heart, as on that of the mediaeval Spanish singer, 
with whom he cried : — 

“ Who will make to me wings that I may fly ever Eastward, 

Until my ruined heart shall dwell in the ruins of thee? 

Then will I bend my face to thy sacred soil and hold precious 
Thy very stones, yea e’en to thy dust shall I tender be. 

“ Life of the soul is the air of thy land, and myrrh of the purest 
Each grain of thy dust, thy waters sweetest honey of the comb. 
Joyous my soul would be, could I even naked and barefoot, 
Amid the holy ruins of thine ancient Temple roam, 

Where the Ark was shrined, and the Cherubim in the Oracle 
had their home.” 

To die in Jerusalem ! — that were success in life. 

Here he was lonely. In Jerusalem he would be 
surrounded by a glorious host. Patriarchs, prophets, 
kings, priests, rabbonim — they all hovered lovingly 
over its desolation, whispering heavenly words of 
comfort. 

But now a curious difficulty arose. The Maggid 
knew from correspondence with Jerusalem Rabbis 
that a Russian subject would have great difficulty in 
slipping in at Jaffa or Beyrout, even aided by bakh¬ 
shish. The only safe way was to enter as a British 
subject. Grotesque irony of the fates! For nigh 
half a century the old man had lived in England in 
his gabardine, and now that he was departing to die in 
gabardine lands, he was compelled to seek naturaliza¬ 
tion as a voluntary Englishman ! He was even com- 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


175 


pelled to account mendaciously for his sudden desire 
to identify himself with John Bull’s institutions and 
patriotic prejudices, and to live as a free-born Eng¬ 
lishman. By the aid of a rich but pious West End 
Jew, who had sometimes been drawn Eastwards by 
the Maggid’s exegetical eloquence, all difficulties 
were overcome. Armed with a passport, signed 
floridly as with a lion’s tail rampant, the Maggid — 
after a quasi-death-bed blessing to Miriam by imposi¬ 
tion of hands from the railway-carriage window upon 
her best bonnet — was whirled away toward his holy 
dying-place. 

VII 

Such disappointment as often befalls the visionary 
when he sees the land of his dreams was spared to 
the Maggid, who remained a visionary even in the pres¬ 
ence of the real; beholding with spiritual eye the ref¬ 
use-laden alleys and the rapacious Schnorrcrs (beggars). 
He lived enswathed as with heavenly love, waiting 
for the moment of transition to the shining World- 
To-Come, and his supplications at the Wailing Wall 
for the restoration of Zion’s glory had, despite their 
sympathetic fervour, the peaceful impersonality of 
one who looks forward to no worldly kingdom. To 
outward view he lived — in the rare intervals when 
he was not at a synagogue or a house-of-learning — 
somewhere up a dusky staircase in a bleak, narrow 
court, in one tiny room supplemented by a kitchen in 


176 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


the shape of a stove on the landing, itself a centre of 
pilgrimage to Schnorrers innumerable, for whom the 
rich English Maggid was an unexpected windfall. 
Rich and English were synonymous in hungry Jeru¬ 
salem, but these beggars’ notion of charity was so 
modest, and the coin of the realm so divisible, that 
the Maggid managed to gratify them at a penny a 
dozen. At uncertain intervals he received a letter 
from Miriam, written in English. The daughter had 
not carried on the learned tradition of the mother, 
and so the Maggid was wont to have recourse to the 
head of the philanthropic technical school for the 
translation of her news into Hebrew. There was, 
however, not much of interest; Miriam’s world had 
grown too alien: she could scrape together little to 
appeal to the dying man. And so his last ties with 
the past grew frailer and frailer, even as his body 
grew feebler and feebler, until at last, bent with 
great age and infirmity, so that his white beard swept 
the stones, he tottered about the sacred city like an 
incarnation of its holy ruin. He seemed like one 
bent over the verge of eternity, peering wistfully into 
its soundless depths. Surely God would send his 
Death-Angel now. 

Then one day a letter from Miriam wrenched him 
back violently from his beatific vision, jerked him 
back to that other eternity of the dead past. 

Isaac, Isaac had come home ! Had come home to 
find desolation. Had then sought his sister, and was 


TO DIE IN JER USA LEM 


177 


now being nursed by her through his dying hours. 
His life had come to utter bankruptcy: his posses¬ 
sions— by a cruel coincidence — had been sold up at 
the very moment that the doctors announced to him 
that he was a doomed man. And his death-bed was 
a premature hell of torture and remorse. He raved 
incessantly for his father. Would he not annul the 
curse, grant him his blessing, promise to say Kaddish 
for his soul, that he might be saved from utter dam¬ 
nation ? Would he not send his forgiveness by re¬ 
turn, for Isaac’s days were numbered, and he could 
not linger on more than a month or so ? 

The Maggid was terribly shaken. He recalled 
bitterly the years of suffering, crowned by Isaac’s 
brutal heedlessness to the cry of his dying mother: 
but the more grievous the boy’s sin, the more awful 
the anger of God in store for him. 

And the mother — would not her own Gan-Iden 
be spoilt by her boy’s agonizing in hell ? For her 
sake he must forgive his froward offspring; perhaps 
God would be more merciful, then. The merits of 
the father counted: he himself was blessed beyond 
his deserts by the merits of the Fathers — of Abra¬ 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob. He had made the pilgrimage 
to Jerusalem ; perhaps his prayers would be heard at 
the Mercy-Seat. 

With shaking hand the old man wrote a letter to 
his son, granting him a full pardon for the sin against 
himself, but begging him to entreat God day and 


178 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


night. And therewith an anthology of consoling 
Talmudical texts: “A man should pray for Mercy 
even till the last clod is thrown upon his grave . . . 
For Repentance and Prayer and Charity avert the 
Evil Decree.” The Charity he was himself distribut¬ 
ing to the startled Schnorrers . 

The schoolmaster wrote out the envelope, as usual, 
but the Maggid did not post the letter. The image 
of his son’s death-bed was haunting him. Isaac 
called to him in the old boyish tones. Could he let 
his boy die there without giving him the comfort of 
his presence, the visible assurance of his forgiveness, 
the touch of his hands upon his head in farewell 
blessing ? No, he must go to him. 

But to leave Jerusalem at his age? Who knew if 
he would ever get back to die there ? If he should 
miss the hope of his life ! But Isaac kept calling to 
him — and Isaac’s mother. Yes, he had strength for 
the journey. It seemed to come to him miraculously, 
like a gift from Heaven and a pledge of its mercy. 

He journeyed to Beyrout, and after a few days 
took ship for Marseilles. 

VIII 

Meantime in the London Ghetto the unhappy 
Ethelred P. Wyndhurst found each day a year. He 
was in a rapid consumption: a disorderly life had 
told v as ruinously upon his physique as upon his 


TO DIE IN JER USA LEM 


179 


finances. And with this double collapse had come a 
strange irresistible resurgence of early feelings and 
forgotten superstitions. The avenging hand was 
heavy upon him in life, — what horrors yet awaited 
him when he should be laid in the cold grave ? The 
shadow of death and judgment over-brooded him, 
clouding his brain almost to insanity. 

There would be no forgiveness for him — his 
father’s remoteness had killed his hope of that. It 
was the nemesis, he felt, of his refusal to come to his 
dying mother. God had removed his father from his 
pleadings, had wrapped him in an atmosphere holy 
and aloof. How should Miriam’s letter penetrate 
through the walls of Jerusalem, pierce through the 
stonier heart hardened by twenty years of desertion ! 

And so the day after she had sent it, the spring 
sunshine giving him a spurt of strength and courage, 
a desperate idea came to him. If he could go to 
Jerusalem himself ! If he could fall upon his father’s 
neck, and extort his blessing! 

And then, too, he would die in Jerusalem! 

Some half-obliterated text sounded in his ears : 
“ And the land shall forgive sin.” 

He managed to rise — his betaking himself to bed, 
he found, as the sunshine warmed him, had been 
mere hopelessness and self-pity. Let him meet 
Death standing, aye, journeying to the sun-lands. 
Nay, when Miriam, getting over the alarm of his up¬ 
rising, began to dream of the Palestine climate curing 


180 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


him, he caught a last flicker of optimism, spoke artis¬ 
tically of the glow and colour of the East, which he 
had never seen, but which he might yet live to 
render on canvas, winning a new reputation. Yes, 
he would start that very day. Miriam pledged her 
jewellery to supply him with funds, for she dared not 
ask her husband to do more for the stranger. 

But long before Ethelred P. Wyndhurst reached 
Jaffa he knew that only the hope of his father’s 
blessing was keeping him alive. 

Somewhere at sea the ships must have passed each 
other. 


IX 

When the gabardined Maggid reached Miriam’s 
house, his remains of strength undermined by the 
long journey, he was nigh stricken dead on the door¬ 
step by the news that his journey was vain. 

“ It is the will of God,” he said hopelessly. The 
sinner was beyond mercy. He burst into sobs and 
tears ran down his pallid cheeks and dripped from 
his sweeping white beard. 

“Thou shouldst have let us know,” said Miriam 
gently. “ We never dreamed it was possible for thee 
to come.” 

“ I came as quickly as a letter could have an¬ 
nounced me.” 

“ But thou shouldst have cabled.” 

“ Cabled ? ” The process had never come within 


TO DIE IN JERUSALEM 


181 


his ken. “ But how should I dream he could travel ? 
Thy letter said he was on his death-bed. I prayed 
God I might but arrive in time.” 

He was for going back at once, but Miriam put 
him to bed — the bed Isaac should have died in. 

“ Thou canst cable thy forgiveness, at least,” she 
said, and so, without understanding this new miracle, 
he bade her ask the schoolmaster to convey his for¬ 
giveness to his son. 

“ Isaac will inquire for me, if he arrives alive,” he 
said. “ The schoolmaster will hear of him. It is a 
very small place, alas! for God hath taken away its 
glory by reason of our sins.” 

The answer came the same afternoon. “ Message 
just in time. Son died peacefully.” 

The Maggid rent his bed-garment. “ Thank God! ” 
he cried. “ He died in Jerusalem. Better he than 
I ! Isaac died in Jerusalem! God will have mercy 
on his soul.” 

Tears of joy sprang to his bleared eyes. “ He died 
in Jerusalem,” he kept murmuring happily at in¬ 
tervals. “ My Isaac died in Jerusalem.” 

Three days later the Maggid died in London. 







VI 


BETHULAH 














VI 


BETHULAH 

I 

The image of her so tragically trustful in that 
mountain village of Bukowina still haunts my 
mind, and refuses to be exorcised, as of yore, by 
the prose of life. One who is very dear to me 
advises driving her out at the point of the pen. 
Whether such recording of my life’s strangest 
episode will lay these memories or not, the story 
itself may at least instruct my fellow-Jews in New 
York how variously their religion has manifested 
itself upon this perplexing planet. Doubtless many 
are still as ignorant as I was respecting their 
mediaeval contemporaries in Eastern Europe. True, 
they have now opportunities in their own Ghetto — 
which is, for cosmopolitanism, a New York within 
a New York — of studying strata from other epochs 
of Judaism spread out on the same plane of time 
as their own, even as upon the white sheet of that 
wonderful invention my aged eyes have lived to 
see, sequent events may be pictured simultaneously. 
In my youth these opportunities did not exist. Only 
in Baltimore and a few of the great Eastern cities 
185 


186 


BETHULAH 


was there any aggregation of Jews, and these were 
all — or wanted to be — good Yankees; while be¬ 
yond the Mississippi, where my father farmed and 
hunted like a Christian, and where you might have 
scoured a thousand square miles to get minyan 
(ten Jews for worship), our picturesque customs 
and ceremonies dwindled away from sheer absence 
of fellowship. My father used to tell of a bronzed 
trapper he breakfasted with on the prairie, who 
astonished him by asking him over their bacon if 
he were a Jew. “ Yes,” said my father. “ Shake ! ” 
said the trapper. “You’re the first fellow-Jew I’ve 
met for twenty years.” Though in my childhood my 
father taught me the Hebrew he had brought from 
Europe, and told me droll Jewish stories in his 
native German, it will readily be understood that 
the real influences I absorbed were the great 
American ideals of liberty and humanity, eman¬ 
cipation and enlightenment, and that therefore the 
strange things I witnessed among the Carpathians 
were far more startling to me than they can be to 
the Jews of to-day upon whom the Old World has 
poured its archaic inhabitants. Nevertheless, I can¬ 
not but think that even those who have met strange 
drifts of sects in New York will be astonished by 
the tradition which I stumbled upon so blindly in 
my first European tour. For, so far as I can 
gather, the Zloczszol legend is unique in Jewish 
history and confined exclusively to this out-of- 


BETHULAH 


187 


the-way corner, however near other heresies may 
have approached to some of the underlying con¬ 
ceptions. My landlord Yarchi’s view that it was 
a mere piece of local commercial myth-making, a 
gross artifice, would have at least the merit of ex¬ 
plaining this uniqueness. It has, in my eyes, no 
other. 

This tour of mine was to make not a circle, but 
a half-circle, for, landing at Hamburg I was to re¬ 
turn by the Baltic, after a circuit through Berlin, 
Prague, Vienna, Buda-Pesth, Lemberg, (where my 
grandfather had once been a rabbi of considera¬ 
tion), Moscow, and St. Petersburg. I did not linger 
at Hamburg; purchasing a stout horse, I started 
on my long ride. Of course it did not seem so 
long to me — who had already ridden from Kansas 
to both of our seaboards— as it would to a young 
gentleman of to-day accustomed to parlour cars, 
though the constant change of dialects and foods 
was somewhat unsettling. 

But money speaks all languages, and a good 
Western stomach digests all diets. Bad water, 
however, no stomach can cope with; and I was 
laid up at Prague with a fever, which left me too 
weak to hurry on. I rambled about the Ghetto — 
the Judenstadt — which gave me my first insight 
into mediaeval Judaism, and was fascinated by the 
quaint alleys and houses, the Jewish town-hall, 
and the cellarlike Alt-Neu synagogue with its 


188 


BETHULAH 


miraculous history of unnumbered centuries. I 
heard the story of the great red flag on the 
pillar, with its “ shield of David ” and the Swede’s 
hat, and was shown on the walls the spatterings 
of the blood of the martyrs of 1389. 

What emotions I had in the old graveyard — a 
Ghetto of the dead — where the graves were hud¬ 
dled together, three and four deep, and the very 
tombstones and corpses had undergone Ghetto 
persecution! A whole new world opened out to 
me, crooked as the Ghetto alleys — so alien from 
the free life of the flowering prairies — as I walked 
about this “ Judengarten,” studying the Hebrew 
inscriptions and the strange symbolic sculptures — 
the Priest’s hands of blessing, the Levite’s ewer, 
the Israelites’ bunch of grapes, the Virgin with 
roses — and trying to reconstruct the life these 
dead had lived. Strange ancestral memories seemed 
thrilling through me, helping me to understand. 
Many stories did I hear, too, of the celebrated 
Rabbi Low, and of the golem he created, which 
brought him his meals: in sign whereof I was 
shown his grave, and his house marked with a 
lion on a blue background. I listened with Ameri¬ 
can incredulity but hereditary sympathy. I was 
astonished to find men who still believed in a cer¬ 
tain SabbataT Zevi, Messiah of the Jews, and one 
showed me a Sabbatian prayer-book with a tur- 
baned head of this Redeemer side by side with 


BETHULAH 


189 


King David’s, and another who scoffed at this 
seventeenth-century impostor, yet told me the 
tradition in his own family, how they had sold their 
business and were about to start for Palestine, 
when the news reached them that so far from de¬ 
posing the Sultan, this Redeemer of Israel had 
become his doorkeeper and a Mohammedan. 

The year was passing toward the Fall ere I got 
to Buda-Pesth (in those days the enchanted gate¬ 
way of the Orient, resounding with gypsy music, 
and not the civilized capital I found it the other 
day), and I had not proceeded far on the noitherly 
bend of my journey when, soon after crossing the 
Carpathians, I was imprisoned in the mountain 
village of Zloczszol by the sudden overflow of the 
Dniester. The village itself was sheltered from 
the floods by a mountain between it and the tribu¬ 
tary of the Dniester; but all the roads northward 
were impassable, and the water came round by 
clefts and soused our bordering fields and oozed 
very near the maize-garden of Yarchi’s pine cottage, 
to which I had removed from the dirty inn, where 
a squalling baby in a cradle had shared the private 
sitting-room. It was a very straggling village, 
which began to straggle at the mountain-foot, but, 
for fear of avalanches, I was told, the houses did 
not grow companionable till some half a mile down 
the plain. 

In the centre of the village was a cobble-paved 


190 


BETHULAH 


“ Ring-Place” and market-place, on which gave a 
few streets of shops (the provision-shops bene¬ 
fiting hugely by the floods, which made imports 
difficult). It was a Jewish colony, with the ex¬ 
ception of a few outlying farms, whose peasants 
brought touches of gorgeous colour into the pro¬ 
cession of black gabardines. It was strange to 
me to live in a place in which every door-post 
bore a Mezuzah . It gave me a novel sense of 
being in a land of Israel, and sometimes I used to 
wonder how these people could feel such a sense 
of local patriotism as seemed to possess them. 
And yet I reflected that, like the giant cedar of Leb¬ 
anon which rose from the plain in such strange 
contrast with the native trees of Zloczszol, Israel 
could be transplanted everywhere, and was made 
of as enduring and undying a wood — nay, that, 
even like this cedar-wood, it had strange properties 
of conserving other substances and arresting putre¬ 
faction. Hence its ubiquitous patriotism was uni¬ 
versally profitable. Nevertheless, this was one of 
the surprises of my journey — to find Jews speak¬ 
ing every language under the European sun, re¬ 
garding themselves everywhere as part of the soil, 
and often patriotic to the point of resenting immi¬ 
grant Jews as foreigners. I myself was popularly 
known as “the Stranger,” though I was not re¬ 
sented, because the couple of dollars at which I 
purchased the privilege of “ark-opening” on my 


BETHULAH 


191 


first visit to the synagogue — a little Gothic build¬ 
ing standing in a court-yard — gave me a further 
reputation as “ the rich stranger.” Once I blushed 
to overhear myself called “the handsome stranger,” 
and I looked into my cracked mirror with fresh 
interest. But I told myself modestly a stalwart 
son of the prairies had an unfair advantage in 
such a world of stooping sallow students. Cer¬ 
tainly I felt myself favoured both in youth and 
looks when I stepped into the Beth-Hamedrash, 
the house of study (which I had at first taken for 
a little mosque, like those I had seen on the slopes 
of Buda), and watched the curious gnarled gray- 
beards crooning and rocking the livelong day over 
worm-eaten folios. 

Despite such odd glimpses of the interesting, I 
grew as tired of waiting for the waters to abate as 
Noah himself must have felt in his zoological 
institute. 

One day as I was gazing from my one-story win¬ 
dow at the melancholy marsh to which the flood had 
reduced the landscape, I said glumly to my hunch¬ 
backed landlord, who stood snuffing himself under 
the porch, “ I suppose it will be another week before 
I can get away.” 

“Alas! yes,” Yarchi replied. 

“ Why alas ? ” I asked. “ It’s an ill wind that 
blows nobody any good, and the longer I stay the 
better for you.” 


192 


BETHULAH 


He shook his head. “The flood that keeps you 
here keeps away the pilgrims.” 

“ The pilgrims ! ” I echoed. 

“ Ay,” said he. “ There will be three in that bed 
of yours.” 

“ But what pilgrims ? ” 

He stared at me. “ Don’t you know the New 
Year is nigh?” 

“Of course,” I said mendaciously. I felt ashamed 
to confess my ignorant unconcern as to the proximity 
of the solemn season of ram’s-horn blasts and 
penitence. 

“ Well, it is at New Year the pilgrims flock to their 
Wonder Rabbi, that he may hear their petitions and 
bear them on high, likewise wrestle with Satan, and 
entreat for their forgiveness at the throne of Grace.” 
There was a twinkle in Yarchi’s eyes not quite con¬ 
sistent with the gravity of his words. 

“ Do Wonder Rabbis live nowadays ? ” I asked. 

A pinch of snuff Yarchi was taking fell from be¬ 
tween his fingers. “ Do they live ! ” he cried. “ Yes 
— and off white bread, for poverty ! ” 

“We have none in America. I only heard of one 
in Prague,” I murmured apologetically, fearing the 
genus might be of the very elements of Judaism. 

“Ah, yes, the high Rabbi Low, his memory for a 
blessing,” he said reverently. “ But these new Won¬ 
der Rabbis can only work one miracle.” 

“ What is that ? ” I asked. 


BETHULAH 


193 


“ The greatest of all — making their worshippers 
support them like princes.” And he laughed in 
admiration of his own humour. 

“ Then you are a heretic ? ” I said. 

“ Heretic ! ” Yarchi’s black eyes exchanged their 
twinkle for a flash of resentment. “Nay; they are 
the heretics, breeding dissension in Israel. Did they 
not dance on the grave of the sainted Elijah Wilna ? ” 

Tired of tossing the ball of conversation up and 
down, I left the window and joined the philosopher 
under his porch, where I elicted from him his version 
of the eighteenth-century movement of Chassidim , 
(the pious ones), which, in these days of English 
books on Judaism, will not be so new to American 
Jews as it was to me. These Shakers (or, as we 
should perhaps say nowadays, Salvationists), these 
protestants against cut-and-dried Judaism, who arose 
among the Carpathians under the inspiration of Besht 
(a word which Yarchi explained to me was made out 
of the initials of Baal Shem Tob — the Master of the 
Good Name), had, it seemed, pullulated into a thou¬ 
sand different sects, each named after the Wonder 
Rabbi whom it swore by, and in whose “exclusive 
divine right” (the phrase is Yarchi’s) it believed. 

“ But we have the divinest chief,” concluded 
Yarchi, grinning. 

“ That’s what they all say, eh ? ” I said, smiling in 
response. 

“ Yes ; but the Zloczszol rabbi is stamped with the 


194 


BETHULAH 


royal seal. He professes to be of the Messianic seed, 
a direct descendant of David, the son of Jesse.” And 
the hunchback chuckled with malicious humour. 

“ I should like to see him,” I said, feeling as if 
Providence had provided a new interest for my 
boredom. 

Yarchi pointed silently with his discoloured thumb 
over the plain. 

“ You don’t mean he is kept in that storehouse ! ” 
I said. 

Yarchi guffawed in high good-humour. 

“ That! That’s the Klaus ! ” 

“ And what’s the Klaus ? ” 

“ The Chassidim Stubele (little room).” 

“ Is that where the miracles are done? ” 

“ No ; that’s their synagogue.” 

“ Oh, they just pray there ! ” 

“ Pray ? They get as drunk as Lot.” 

II 

I returned to my window and gazed curiously at 
the Klaus , and now that my eye was upon it I saw it 
was astir with restless life. Men came and went con¬ 
tinually. I looked toward the synagogue, and the 
more pretentious building seemed dead. Then I re¬ 
membered what Yarchi had told me, that the Chassi¬ 
dim had revolted against set prayer-times. (“ They 
pray and drink at all hours,” was his way of putting 


BETHULAH 


195 


it.) Something must always be forward in the Klaus , 
I thought, as I took my hat and stick, on exploring 
bent. Instinctively I put my pistol in my hip pocket, 
then bethought myself with a laugh that I was not 
likely to be molested by the “ pious ones.” But as it 
was unloaded, I let it remain in the pocket. 

I slipped into the building and on to a bench near 
the door. But for the veiled Ark at the end, I should 
not have known the place for a house of worship. 
True, some men were sitting or standing about, shout¬ 
ing and singing, with odd spasmodic gestures, but 
the bulk were lounging, smoking clay pipes, drinking 
coffee, and chattering, while a few, looking like tramps, 
lay snoring on the hard benches, deaf to all the 
din. My eye sought at once for the Wonder Rabbi 
himself, but amid the many quaint physiognomies 
there was none with any apparent seal of supremacy. 
The note of all the faces was easy-going good-will, 
and even the passionate contortions of melody and 
body which the worshippers produced, the tragic 
clutchings at space, the clinching of fists, and the 
beating of breasts had an air of cheery impromptu. 
They seemed to enjoy their very tears. And every 
now and then the inspiration would catch one of the 
gossipers and contort him likewise, while a worship¬ 
per would as suddenly fall to gossiping. 

Very soon a frost-bitten old man I remembered 
coming across in the cemetery on the mountain-slope, 
where he was sweeping the fallen leaves from a tomb, 


196 


BETHULAH 


and singing like the grave-digger in Hamlet , sidled up 
to me and asked me if I needed vodka. I thought it 
advisable to need some, and was quickly supplied 
from a box the old fellow seemed to keep under the 
Ark. The price was so moderate that I tipped him 
with as much again, doubtless to the enhancement of 
the “rich stranger’s” reputation. Sipping it, I was 
able to follow with more show of ease the bursts of 
rambling conversation. Sometimes they talked about 
the floods, anon about politics, then about sacred texts 
and the illuminations of the Zohar. But there was 
one topic which ran like a winding pattern through 
all the talk, bursting in at the most unexpected places, 
and this was the wonders wrought by their rabbi. 

As they dilated “ with enkindlement ” upon miracle 
after miracle, some wrought on earth and some in 
the higher spheres to which his soul ascended, my 
curiosity mounted, and calling for more vodka, 
“ Where is the rabbi ? ” I asked the sexton. 

“ He may perhaps come down to lunch,” said he, 
in reverent accents, as if to imply that the rabbi was 
now in the upper spheres. I waited till tables were 
spread with plain fare in the Klaus itself. At the 
savour the fountain of worship was sealed; the snor- 
ers woke up. I was invited to partake of the 
meal, which, I was astonished to find, was free to all, 
provided by the rabbi. 

“Truly royal hospitality,” I thought. But our 
royal host himself did not “come down.” 


BETHULAH 


197 


My neighbour, of whom I kept inquiring, at last 
told me, sympathetically, to have patience till Friday 
evening, when the rabbi would come to welcome in 
the Sabbath. But as it was then Tuesday, “Cannot 
I call upon him ? ” I asked. 

He shook his head. “ Ben David holds his court 
no more this year,” he said. “ He is in seclusion, 
preparing for the exalted soul-flights of the* pilgrim 
season. The Sabbath is his only public day now.” 

There was nothing for it but to wait till the Friday 
eve, though in the meantime I got Yarchi to show 
me the royal palace — a plain two-storied Oriental¬ 
looking building with a flat roof, and a turret on the 
eastern side, whose high, ivy-mantled slit of window 
turned at the first rays of the sun into a great diamond. 

“He couldn’t come down, couldn’t he?” Yarchi 
commented. “ I daresay he wasn’t sober enough.” 

Somehow this jarred upon me. I was beginning 
to conjure up romantic pictures, and assuredly my 
one glimpse of the sect had not shown any intoxication 
save psychic. 

“ He is very generous, anyhow,” I said. “ He 
supplies a free lunch.” 

“Free to him,” retorted the incorrigible Yarchi. 
“ The worshippers fancy it is free, but it is they who 
pay for it.” And he snuffed himself, chuckling. 
“ I’ll tell you what is free,” he added. “ His morals ! ” 

“ But how do you know ? ” 

“ Oh, all those fellows go in for the Adamite life.” 


198 


BETHULAH 


“ What is the Adamite life ? ” 

He winked. “ Not the pre-Evite.” 

I saw it was fruitless to reason with his hunch¬ 
backed view of the subject. 

On the Friday eve I repaired again to the Klaus , 
but this time it was not so easy to find a seat. How¬ 
ever, by the grace of my friend the sexton, I was 
accommodated near the Ark, where, amid a congre¬ 
gation clad in unexpected white, I sat,- a conscious 
black discord. There was a certain palpitating fer¬ 
vour in the air, as though the imminence of the New 
Year and Judgment Day had strung all spirits to a 
higher tension. Suddenly a shiver seemed to run 
through the assemblage, and all eyes turned to the 
door. A tall old man, escorted by several persons 
of evident consideration, walked with erect head but 
tottering gait to the little platform in front of the 
Ark, and, taking a praying-shawl from the reveren¬ 
tial hand of the sexton, held it a moment, as in 
abstraction, before drawing it over his head and 
shoulders. As he stood thus, almost facing me, 
yet unconscious of me, his image was photographed 
on my excited brain. He seemed very aged, with 
abundant white locks and beard, and he was clothed 
in a white satin robe cut low at the neck and orna¬ 
mented at the breast with gold-laced, intersecting 
triangles of “the Shield of David.” 

On his head was a sort of white biretta. I noted 
a curious streak of yellow in the silvered eyebrows, 


BETHULAH 


199 

as if youth clung on, so to speak, by a single hair, 
and underneath these arrestive eyebrows green pupils 
alternately glowed and smouldered. On his forefinger 
he wore a signet ring, set with amethysts and with 
a huge Persian emerald, which, as his hand rose and 
fell, and his fingers clasped and unclasped themselves 
in the convulsion of prayer, seemed to glare at me 
like a third green eye. And as soon as he began 
thus praying, every trace of age vanished. He trem¬ 
bled, but only from emotion; and his passion 
mounted, till at last his whole body prayed. And 
the congregation joined in with shakings and quiver¬ 
ings and thunderings and ululations. Not even in 
Prague had I experienced such sympathetic emotion. 
After the well-regulated frigidities of our American 
services, it was truly warming to be among wor¬ 
shippers not ashamed to feel. Hours must have 
passed, but I sat there as content as any. When 
the service ended, everybody crowded round the 
Wonder Rabbi to give the “ Good Sabbath ” hand¬ 
shake. The scene jarred me by its incongruous 
suggestion of our American receptions at which the 
lion of the evening must extend his royal paw to 
every guest. But I went up among the rest, and 
murmured my salutation. The glow came into his 
eyes as they became conscious of me for the first 
time, and his gaunt bloodless hand closed crushingly 
on mine, so that I almost fancied the signet ring 
was sealing my flesh. 


200 


BETHULAH 


“Good Sabbath, stranger,” he replied. “You 
linger long here.” 

“ As long as the floods,” I said. 

“ Are you as dangerous to us ? ” he flashed back. 

“ I trust not,” I said, a whit startled. 

His jewelled forefinger drummed on the reading- 
stand, and his eyes no longer challenged mine, but 
were lowered as in abstraction. 

“Your grandfather, who lies in Lemberg, was no 
friend to the followers of Besht. He laid the ban 
even on white Sabbath garments, and those who but 
wept in the synagogues he classed with us.” 

I was more taken aback by his knowledge of my 
grandfather than by that ancient gentleman’s hostility 
to the emotional heresy of his day. 

“ I never saw my grandfather,” I replied simply. 

“True. The son of the prairies should know 
more of God than the bookworms. Will you accept 
a seat at my table ? ” 

“ With pleasure, Rabbi,” I murmured, dazed by 
his clairvoyant air. 

They were now arranging the two tables, one 
with a white cloth for the master and his circle in 
strict order of precedence; and the other of bare 
wood for such of the rabble as could first scramble 
into the seats. I was placed on his right hand, and 
became at once an object of wonder and awe. The 
Kiddush which initiated the supper was not a novel 
ceremony to me, but what I had never seen before 


BETHULAH 


201 


was the eagerness with which each guest sipped from 
the circulating wine-cup of consecration, and the dis¬ 
appointment of such of the mob as could find no 
drop to drain. Still fiercer was the struggle for the 
Wonder Rabbi’s soup, after he had taken a couple 
of spoonfuls; even I had no chance of distinction 
before this sudden simultaneous swoop, though of 
course I had my own plateful to drink. As sudden 
was the transition from soup to song, the whole com¬ 
pany singing and swaying in victorious ecstasy. I 
turned to speak to my host, but his face awed me. 
The eyes had now their smouldering inward fire. 
The eyebrows seemed wholly white; the features 
were still. Then as I watched him his whole body 
grew rigid, he closed his eyes, his head fell back. 
The singing ceased; as tense a silence reigned as 
though the followers too were in a trance. My eyes 
were fixed on the Master’s blind face, which had now 
not the dignity of death, but only the indignity of 
lifelessness, and, but for the suggestion of mystery 
behind, would have ceased to impress me. For 
there was now revealed a coarseness of lips, a nar¬ 
rowness of forehead, an ugliness of high cheek-bone, 
which his imperial glance had transfigured, and which 
his flowing locks still abated. But as I gazed, the 
weird stillness took possession of me. I could not 
but feel with the rest that the Master was making a 
“ soul-ascension.” 

It seemed very long — yet it may have been only 


202 


BETHULAH 


a few minutes, for in absolute silence one’s sense of 
time is disconcerted — ere waves of returning life 
began to traverse the cataleptic face and form. At 
last the Wonder Rabbi opened his eyes, and the 
hush grew profounder. Every ear was astrain for 
the revelations to come. 

“ Children,” said he slowly, “ as I passed through 
the circles the souls cried to me. ‘ Haste, haste, for 
the Evil One plotteth and the Messianic day will be 
again delayed.’ So I rose into the ante-chamber of 
Grace where the fiery wheels sang ‘ Holy, holy,’ and 
there I came upon the Poison God waiting to see the 
glory of the Little Face. And with him was a soul, 
very strange, such as I had never seen, living neither 
in heaven nor hell, perchance created of Satan him¬ 
self for his instrument. Then with a great cry I 
uttered the Name, and the Poison God fled with 
a great fluttering, leaving the nameless, naked soul 
helpless amid the consuming, dazzling wheels. So 
I returned through the circles to reassure the souls, 
and they shouted with a great shout.” 

“ Hallelujah! ” came in a great shout from the 
wrought-up listeners, and then they burst into a lilt¬ 
ing chant of triumph. But by this time my mood 
had changed. The spell of novelty had begun to 
wear off; perhaps also I was fatigued by the long 
strain. I recalled the coarser face of the comatose 
saint, and I found nothing but gibberish in the oracu¬ 
lar “ revelation ” which he had brought down with 


BETHULAH 


203 


such elaborate pains from the circles amid which he 
seemed to move. 

Thanking him for his hospitality, I slipped from 
the hot, roaring room. 

Ah ! what a waft of fresh air and sense of starlit 
space ! The young moon floated in the star-sprinkled 
heavens like a golden boat, with a faint suggestion 
of the full-sailed orb. The true glamour and mys¬ 
tery of the universe were again borne in upon me, 
as in our rich, constellated prairie nights, and all the 
artificial abracadabra of the Klaus seemed akin to its 
heated, noisy atmosphere. The lights of the village 
were extinguished, and, looking at my watch, I found 
it was close upon midnight. But as I passed the 
saint’s “ palace ” I was astonished to find a light 
twinkling from the turret window. I wondered who 
kept vigil. Then I bethought me it was Friday 
night when no light could be struck, and this must 
be Ben David’s bed-room lamp, awaiting his return. 

“ I thought he had taken you up in his fiery 
chariot,” grumbled Yarchi sleepily, as he unbarred 
the door. 

“ The fiery chariot must not run on the Sabbath,” 
I said smiling. “ And, moreover, Ben David takes 
no passengers to the circles.” 

“ Circles ! He ought to have a circle of rope 
round his neck.” 

“ The soup was good,” I pleaded, as I groped my 
way toward my quaint, tall bed. 


204 


BETHULAH 


III 

I cannot explain why, when Yarchi asked me sar¬ 
castically, over the Sabbath dinner, whether I was 
going to the “ Supper of the Holy Queen,” I knew 
at once that I should be found at this mysterious 
meal. Perhaps it was that I had nothing better to 
do ; perhaps my sympathy was returning to those 
strange, good-humoured, musical loungers, so far 
removed from the New York ideal of life. Or per¬ 
haps I was vaguely troubled by the dream I had 
wrestled with more or less obscurely all night long — 
that I stood naked in a whirl of burning wheels that 
sang, as they turned, the melody of the Chassidim. 
Was I this nondescript soul, I wondered, half smil¬ 
ingly, fashioned of the Evil One to delay the Messianic 
era ? 

The sun was set, the three stars already in the sky, 
and my pious landlord had performed the Ceremony 
of Division ere I set out, declining the bread and fish 
Yarchi offered to make up in a package. 

“ Saturday nights every man must bring his own 
meal,” he said. 

I replied that I went not to eat, but to look on. 
However, I was so late in arriving that, as there 
were no lights, looking on was well-nigh reduced to 
listening. In the gray twilight the Klaus seemed 
full of uncanny forms rocking in monotonous sing¬ 
song. Through the gathering gloom the old Wonder 


BETHULAH 


205 


Rabbi’s face loomed half ghostlike, half regal. As 
the mystic dusk grew deeper and darkness fell, the 
fascination of it all began to overcome me: the dim, 
tossing, crooning figures, divined rather than seen, 
washed round lappingly and swayingly by their own 
rhythmic melody, full of wistful sweetness. My 
soul too tossed in this circumlapping tide. The 
complex world of modern civilization fell away from 
me as garments fall from a bather. Even this primi¬ 
tive mountain village passed into nothingness, and 
in a timeless, spaceless universe I floated in a lulling, 
measureless music. 

zEons might have elapsed ere the glare of light 
dazzled my eyes when the week-day candles were 
lit, and the supper to escort the departing Holy 
Queen — the Sabbath — began. Again I was invited 
to the upper table, despite Yarchi’s warning. But I 
had no appetite for earthly things, was jarred by the 
prosaic gusto with which the mystics threw them¬ 
selves upon the tureen of red Borsch and the black 
pottle of brandy. 

“ Der Rabbi hat geheissen Branntwein trinken,” 
hummed the sexton joyously. But little by little, 
as their stomachs grew satiate, the holy singing 
started afresh, and presently they leaped up, pulled 
aside the table, and made a whirling ring. I was 
caught up into the human cyclone, and round and 
round we flew, our hands upon one another’s shoul¬ 
ders, with blind' ecstatic faces, our legs kicking out 


206 


BETHULAH 


madly, to repel, I understood, the embryonic demons 
outside the magic circle. And again methought I 
made a “soul-ascension,” or at least hovered as near 
to the ineffable mysteries as the demoniacles to our 
magic circle. 

Oh, what inexpressible religious raptures were 
mine! What no gorgeous temple, nor pealing organ, 
nor white-robed minister had ever wrought for me 
was wrought in this barracklike room with its rude 
benches and wooden ark. “ Children of the Palace ” 
we sang, and as I strove to pick up the words I 
thought we were indeed sons of our Father who is in 
Heaven. 


CHILDREN OF THE PALACE 

Children of the Palace, haste — 

All who yearn the bliss to taste 
Of the glorious Little-Faced, 

Where, within the King’s house placed, 

Shines the sapphire throne enchased. 

Come, in joyful dance enlaced, 

Mock the cold and primly chaste. 

See no sullen nor straitlaced 
In our circle may be traced. 

Here with th’ Ancient One embraced 
Inmost truth ’tis ours to taste, 

Outer husks are shred to waste. 

Children of the Palace, haste, 

With the glory to be graced, 

Come, behold the Little-Faced. 

We broke up some hours earlier than the previous 
evening, but I hurried away from my sauntering 


BETHULAH 


207 


fellow-worshippers, not now because I was disgusted, 
but because I feared to be. I needed solitude — 
communion with my own soul. The same crescent 
moon hung in the heavens, the same endless stars 
drew on the thoughts to a material infinity. 

But now I felt there was another and a truer 
universe encompassing this painted vision — a spirit¬ 
ual universe of which I had hitherto known nothing, 
though I had glibly prated of it and listened well- 
satisfied to sermons about it. 

The air was warm and pleasant, and, still thrilling 
with the sense of the Over-Soul, I had passed the 
outposts of the village almost unconsciously, and 
walked in the direction of the cemetery on the other 
slope of the mountain (for the dead feared neither 
floods nor avalanches). On my left ran the river, 
still turbulent and encumbered with wreckage and 
logs, but now at low tide some feet below the level 
of its steep banks. The road gradually narrowed 
till at last I was walking on a mere strip of path 
between the starlit water and the base of the moun¬ 
tain, which rose ineffably solemn with its desolate 
rock at my side and its dark pines higher up. And 
suddenly lifting my eyes, I saw before me a mystic 
moonlit figure that set my heart beating with terror 
and surprise. 

It was the figure of a woman, or rather of a girl, 
tall, queenly, shining in a strange white robe, with a 
crown of roses and olive branches. For a moment 


208 


BETHULAH 


she seemed like some spirit of moonlight. But 
though the eyes were misted with sadness and 
dream, the face was of the most beautiful Jewish 
oval, glowing with dark creamy flesh. 

A wild idea rose to my mind, and, absurdly 
enough, stilled my beating heart. This was the 
Holy Queen Sabbath whose departure we had just 
been celebrating, and in this unfrequented haunt 
she abode till the twilight of the next Friday. 

“Hail, Holy Queen!” I said, almost involuntarily. 

I saw her large beautiful eyes grow larger as she 
woke with a start to my presence, but she only in¬ 
clined her head with a sovereign air, as one used to 
adoration, and floated on — for so her gracious motion 
seemed to me. 

And as she passed by, it flashed upon me that the 
strange white robe was nothing but a shroud. And 
again a great horror seized me. But struggling with 
my failing senses, I told myself that at worst it was 
some poor creature buried alive in the graveyard, 
who had forced the coffin lid, and now wandered 
half insanely homewards. 

“ May I not escort you, lady ? ” I cried after her. 
“ The way is lonely.” 

She turned her face again upon me. I saw it had 
fire as well as mystery. 

“Who dare molest the Holy Queen ? ” she said. 

Again I was plunged into the wildest bewilder¬ 
ment. Was my first fancy true ? Or had I stumbled 


BETHULAH 


209 


upon some esoteric title she bore ? Or had she but 
seized on my own phrase ? 

“ But you go far ? ” I persisted. 

“Unto my father’s house.” 

“ Pardon me. I am a stranger.” 

She turned round wholly now and looked at me. 
“Oh, are you the Stranger?" she said. The ques¬ 
tion rippled like music from her lips and was as 
sweet to my ear, linking her to me by the suggestion 
that I was not new to her imagination. 

“ I am the Stranger,” I answered, moving slowly 
toward her, “ and therefore afraid for your sake, 
and startled by the shroud you wear.” 

“ Since the dawn of my thirteenth year it has 
been my daily robe. It should be in lamentation 
for Zion laid waste. But me, I fear, it reminds 
more of my dead mother and sisters.” 

“ You had sisters ? ” 

“Two beautiful lives, blown out one after the 
other like candles, making our home dark, when I 
was but a child. They too wore shrouds in life and 
death, first the elder, then the younger; and when 
I draw mine over my dress, it is of them I think 
always. I feel we are truly sisters — sisters of the 
shroud.” 

I shivered as from some chill graveyard air, despite 
her sweet corporeality. 

“But the crown — the crown of joy?” I murmured, 
regarding now with closer vision the intertangled 


210 


BETHULAH 


weaving of roses and myrtle and olive branches, 
with gold and crimson threads wound about salt 
stones and the pale yellow of pyrites. 

“I do not know what it signifies,” she said simply. 

“Are you not the Holy Queen?” I asked, begin¬ 
ning to scent some Cabalistic or Chassidic mystery. 

“ Men worship me. But I know not of what I am 
queen.” And a wistful smile played about the sweet 
mouth. “ Peace and sweet dreams to you, sir.” And 
she turned her face to the village. 

She knew not of what she was queen. There, all 
in one sentence, was the charm, the wonder, the 
pathos, of her. Yet there was still much that she 
knew that would enlighten me. And it was not 
wholly curiosity that provoked me to hold the vision. 
I hated to see the enchantment of her presence 
dissolve, to be robbed of the liquid notes of her voice. 

“ You are queen of me at least,” I said, follow¬ 
ing her, and throwing all my republican principles 
into the river among the other wreckage. “ And 
your Majesty’s liege cannot endure to see you walk 
unattended so late in the night.” 

“ I have God’s company,” she answered quietly. 

“True; He is always with us. Nevertheless, at 
night and in the mountains — ” 

“ He may be perceived more clearly. My father 
makes soul-ascensions at any hour by force of prayer. 
But for me the divine ecstasy comes only under 
God’s heaven, and most clearly at night and among 


BETHULAH 


211 


the graves. By day God is invisible, like the 
stars.” 

“ They may be perceived from a well,” I said, 
mechanically, for my brain was busy with the intui¬ 
tion that she was Ben David’s daughter, that her 
“queendom” was somehow bound up with his alleged 
royal descent. 

“ Even so is God visible from the deeps of the 
spirit,” she answered. “ But these depths are not 
mine, and day speaks to me less surely of Him.” 

“The day is divine too,” I urged. “God speaks 
also through joy, through sunshine.” 

“ It is but the gilding of sorrow.” 

“ Nay, that is too hard a saying. How can you 
know that? You” — I made a bold guess, for my 
brain had continued to work feverishly — “ who live 
cloistered in a turret, who are kept sequestered from 
man, who walk at night, and only among the dead. 
How can you know that life is so sad ? ” 

“ I feel it. Is not every stone in the graveyard 
hewn from the dead heart of the mourners ? ” 

All the sadness of the world was in her eyes, yet 
somehow all the sweet solace. Again she bade me 
good-night, and I was so under the spell of her 
strange reply that I made no further effort to follow 
her, as she was swallowed up in the gloom of the 
firs where the path wound back round the mountain. 



212 


BETHULAH 


IV 

The floods abated before the New Year dawned, 
as was testified by the arrival, not of doves with olive 
* leaves, but of pilgrims from the north with shekels. 
The road was therefore open for me to go, yet I 
lingered. I told myself it was the fascination of the 
pilgrims, that curious new population which brought 
quite a bustle into the “ Ring-Place ” of Zloczszol, 
and gave even the shops of the native Chassidim a 
live air. There were unpleasant camp-followers in 
the train of the invading army, cripples and con¬ 
sumptives, both rich and poor; but, on the whole, 
it was a cheery, well-to-do company. I retained my 
room by paying the rent of three lodgers, and even 
then Yarchi would come in and look at the big, 
tall bed wistfully, as if it were a waste of sleeping 
material. 

The great episode of each day was now the royal 
levee. Crowds besieged the door of the “palace,” 
in quest of health, wealth, and happiness, and the 
proprietor of fields had to squeeze in with the tramp, 
and the peasant woman and her neglected brat jostled 
the jewelled dame from the towns. I was glad to 
think that the “ Holy Queen ” was hidden safely 
away in her turret, and this consoled me for not 
meeting her again, though I walked or trotted about 
on my bay mare at all hours and in all places in 
quest of her. 


BETHULAH 


213 


It may seem curious that I did not boldly call and 
ask to see her, but that would bring the common¬ 
place into our so poetic relation. Besides which, I 
divined that she would not be easily on view. Be¬ 
yond indirectly justifying my intuition that she was 
Ben David’s daughter by satisfying myself that the 
Wonder Rabbi had once had three girls, two of whom 
had died, I would not even make inquiries. I feared 
to dissipate the mystery and sacredness of our re¬ 
lation by gossip. Perhaps Yarchi would tell me she 
was mad, or treat me to some other coarse miscon¬ 
ception due to the callous feelers with which he 
apprehended the world. 

I did not even know for certain that the light I saw 
in the turret was hers. But when at night it was out, 
I hastened to the river-side, to see only my own 
shadow on the hushed mountain slope or on the 
white tombs. It seemed clear that she was being 
kept sacred from the pilgrims’ gaze; perhaps, too, 
the deserted, untravelled road which was safe as her 
own home in normal times, was less secure now. 

When I at last ventured to say casually to Yarchi 
that Ben David’s daughter seemed to be kept strictly 
to the house, the ribald grin I had feared distorted 
his malicious mouth. 

“ Oh, you have seen Bethulah ! ” he said. 

“Yes,” I murmured, turning my flushed face away, 
but glad to learn her name. Bethulah ! Bethulah ! 
my heart seemed to beat to the music of it. 



214 


BETHULAH 


“ Does she still stalk about in a shroud ? ” He did 
not wait for an answer, but went off into unending 
laughter, which doubled him up till his hunch pro¬ 
truded upward like a camel’s. 

“ She does not go about at all now,” I said freez- 
ingly. But this set Yarchi cachinnating worse than 
ever. 

“ He daren’t trust even his own disciples, you see! 
Ha! ha! ha!” 

“Yarchi!” I cried angrily, “you know Bethulah 
must be kept sacred from this rabble,” and I switched 
with my riding-whip at the poppies that grew among 
the maize in the little front garden, as if they were 
pilgrims and I a Tarquin. 

“Yes, I know that’s Ben David’s game. But I 
wish some man would marry her and ruin his busi¬ 
ness. Ha ! ha ! ha ! ” 

“ It would ruin yours too,” I reminded him, more 
angrily. “You are ready enough to let lodgings to 
the pilgrims.” 

Yarchi shrugged his hump. “If fools are fools, 
wise men are wise men,” he replied oracularly. 

I strode away, but he had heated my brain with a 
new idea, or one that I now allowed myself to see 
clearly. Some man might marry her. Then why 
should I not be that man ? Why should I not carry 
Bethulah back to America with me — the most pre¬ 
cious curiosity of the Old World — a frank, virginal 
creature with that touch of the angel which I had 


BETHULAH 


215 


dreamed of but had never met among our smart girls 
— up to then. And even if it were true that Ben 
David was a fraud, and needed the girl for his 
Cabalistic mystifications, even so I was rich enough 
to recoup him. The girl herself was no conscious 
accessory; of that I felt certain. 

When my brain cooled, suggestions of the other 
aspects of the question began to find entrance. 
What of Bethulah herself ? Why should she care to 
marry me ? Or to go to the strange, raw country ? 
And such a union — was it not too incongruous, too 
fantastic, for practical life ? Thus I wrestled with 
myself for three days, all the while watching Bethu- 
lah’s turret or the roads she might come by. On the 
third night I saw a wild mob of men at the turret end 
of the house, dancing in a ring and singing, with 
their eyes turned upward to the light that burnt on 
high. Their words I could not catch at first through 
the tumultuous howl, but it went on and on, like their 
circumvolutions, over and over again, till my brain 
reeled. It seemed to be an appeal to Bethulah to 
plead their cause on the coming Yom-Hadin (New- 
Year day of Judgment): — 

“ By thy soul without sin, 

Enter heaven within, 

This divine Yom-Hadin , 

Holy Maid. 

“Undertake thou our plea; 

Let the Poison God be 
Answered stoutly by thee, 

Holy Queen . 11 


216 


BETHULAH 


When I came to write this down afterward, I dis¬ 
covered it was an acrostic on her name, as is custom¬ 
ary with festival prayers. And this I have preserved 
in my rough translation. 


V 

Despite my new spiritual insight, I could not bring 
myself to sympathize with such crude earthly vision- 
ings of the heavenly judgment bar (doubtless bor¬ 
rowed from the book of Job, which our enlightened 
Western rabbis rightly teach to be allegorical). 
Temporary absorption into the Over-Soul seemed to 
me to sum up the limits of Chassidic experience. Be¬ 
sides, Bethulah was not a being to be employed as 
a sort of supernatural advocate, but a sad, tender 
creature needing love and protection. 

This mob howling outside my lady’s chamber 
added indignation to my strange passion for this 
beautiful “sister of the shroud.” I would rescue her 
from this grotesque environment. I would go to her 
father and formally demand her hand, as, I had learnt, 
was the custom among these people. I slept upon 
the resolution, yet in the morning it was still un¬ 
crumpled ; and immediately after breakfast I took 
my stand among the jostling crowd outside the 
turreted house, and unfairly secured precedence by 
a gold piece slipped into the palm of the doorkeeper. 
The scribe I found stationed in the ante-chamber 


BETHULAH 


217 


made me write my wish on a piece of paper, which, 
however, I was instructed to carry in myself. 

Ben David was seated in a curious soft-cushioned, 
high-backed chair, with the intersecting triangles 
making a carved apex to it, but otherwise there was 
no mark of what Yarchi would have called charla¬ 
tanism. His face, set between a black velvet biretta 
and the white masses of his beard, had the dignity 
with which it had first impressed me, and his long, 
fur-trimmed robe gave him an air of mediaeval 
wisdom. 

“ Peace be to you, long-lingering stranger,” he 
said, though his green eyes glittered ominously. 

“ Peace,” I murmured uneasily. 

With his left hand he put the still folded paper to 
his brow. I watched the light playing on the Persian 
emerald seal of the ring on the forefinger of his right 
hand. Suddenly I perceived he too was looking at 
the stone — nay, into it — and that while that con¬ 
tinued to glitter, his own eyes had grown glazed. 

“ Strange, strange,” he muttered. “ Again I see 
the fiery wheels, and the strange soul fashioned of 
Satan that dwells neither in heaven nor in hell.” 
And his eyes lit up terribly again and rolled like 
fiery wheels. 

“ What do you want ? ” he cried harshly. 

“It is written on the paper,” I faltered, “just two 
words.” 

He opened the paper and read out, “ Your daugh- 


218 


BETHULAH 


ter ! ” His eyes rolled again. “ What know you ot 
my daughter ? ” 

“Oh, I know all about her,” I said airily. 

“ Then you know that my daughter does not re¬ 
ceive pilgrims.” 

“Nay, ’tis I that wish to receive your daughter,” 
I ventured jocosely, with a touch of levity I did not 
feel. He raised his clinched hand as if to strike me, 
and I had a lurid sense of three green- eyes glaring 
at me. I stood my ground as coolly as possible, and 
said, in dry, formal tones, “ I wish to make applica¬ 
tion for her hand.” 

A great blackness came over the frosted visage, as 
if his black biretta had been suddenly drawn forward, 
and his erst blanched eyebrows gloomed like a black 
lightning-cloud over the baleful eyes. 

I shrank back, then I had a sudden vision of the 
wagons clattering down Broadway in a live, sunlit, 
go-ahead world, and the Wonder Rabbi turned into 
an absurd old parent with a beautiful daughter and a 
bad temper. 

“ I am a man of substance,” I went on dryly. “ In 
my country I have fat lands.” 

The horribleness of thus bidding for Bethulah 
flashed on me even as I spoke. To mix up a crea¬ 
ture of mist and moonlight with substance and fat 
lands ! Monstrous ! And yet I knew that thus, and 
thus only, by honourable talk with her guardian, could 
a Zloczszol bride be won. 


BETHULAH 


219 


But the Wonder Rabbi sprang to his feet so vehe¬ 
mently that his high-backed chair rocked as in a gale. 

“ Dog ! ” he shrieked. “ Blasphemer ! ” 

I summoned all my American sang-froid. 

“ Dog,” I agreed, “ inasmuch as I follow your 
daughter like a dog, humbly, lovingly. But blas¬ 
phemer ? Say rather worshipper. For I worship 
Bethulah.” 

“Then worship her like the others,” he roared. 
Had I not heard him pray, I should have expected 
the hoary patriarch to collapse after such an out¬ 
burst. 

“ Thank you,” I said. “ I don’t want her to fly up 
to heaven for me. I want her to come down to earth 
— from her turret.” 

“ She will not come down to any earthly spouse,” 
he said more gently. “ Quite the reverse.” 

“Then I will make a soul-ascension,” I said defi¬ 
antly. 

“ Get back to hell, spawn of Satan ! ” he thundered 
again. “Or since, strange son of the New World, 
you neither believe nor disbelieve, hover eternally 
between hell and heaven ! ” 

“ Meantime I am here,” I said good-humouredly, 
“ between you and your daughter. Come, come, be 
sensible; you are a very old man. Where in Zloc- 
zszolwill you find a superior husband for your child ? ” 

“The Lord, to whom she is consecrated, forgive 
you your blasphemy,” he said, in a changed voice, 


220 


BETHULAH 


and rang his bell, so that the next applicant came in 
and I had to go. 

It was plain the girl was kept as a sacred celibate, 
a sort of vestal virgin — Bethulah was the very He¬ 
brew for virgin, it suddenly flashed upon me. But 
how came such practices into Judaism — Judaism, 
with its cheery creed, “ increase and multiply ? ” 
And Chassidism y I had hitherto imagined, was the 
cheeriness of Judaism concentrated! -In Yarchi’s 
version it was even license — “the Adamite life.” I 
raked up my memories of the Bible — remembered 
Jephtha’s daughter. But no! there could be no 
question of a vow; this was some new Chassidic 
mystery. The crown and the shroud ! The shroud 
of renunciation, the crown of victory ! 

And for some fantastic shadow-myth a beautiful 
young life was to be immolated. My respect for 
Chassidism vanished as suddenly as it came. 

But I was powerless. I could only wait till the 
flood of pilgrims oozed back, even as the waters had 
done. Then perhaps. Bethulah might walk again 
upon the moonlit mountain-peak, or in the “ house of 
life,” as the cemetery was mystically called. 

The penitential season, with its trumpets and ter¬ 
rors, judgment-writings and sealings, was over at 
last, and Tabernacles came like a breath of air anc 
nature. Yarchi hammered up a little wooden booth 
in the corner of his front garden, and hung grapes 
and oranges and flowers from its loose roof of boughs, 


BETHULAH 


221 


through which the stars peeped at us as we ate. It 
struck me as a very pretty custom, and I wondered 
why American Judaism had let it fall into desuetude. 
Ere the break-up of these booths the pilgrims had 
begun to melt away, the old sleepiness to fall upon 
Zloczszol. 

Hence I was startled one morning by the passage 
of a joyous procession that carried torches and played 
on flutes and tambourines. I ran out and discovered 
that I was part of a wedding procession escorting a 
bride. As this was a company not of Chassidim , 
but of everyday Jews, bound for the little Gothic 
synagogue, I was surprised, despite my experience 
of the Tabernacles, to find such picturesque goings- 
on, and I went all the way to the courtyard, where 
the rabbi came out to meet us with the bridegroom, 
who, it seemed, had already been conducted hither 
with parallel pomp. The happy youth — for he 
could only have been sixteen — was arrayed in festi¬ 
val finery, with white shoes on his feet and black 
phylacteries on his forehead, which was further over¬ 
gloomed by a cowl. He took the bride’s hand, and 
then we all threw wheat over their heads, crying 
three times, “Peru, Urvu ” (Be fruitful and multi¬ 
ply). But just when I expected the ceremony to 
begin, the bride was snatched away, and we all filed 
into the synagogue to await her return. 

I had fallen into a mournful reverie — perhaps the 
suggestion of my own infelicitous romance was too 


222 


BETHULAH 


strong — when I felt a stir of excitement animating 
my neighbours, and, looking up, lo! I saw a tall 
female figure in a white shroud, with a veiled face, 
and on her head a crown of roses and myrtles 
and olive branches. A shiver ran through me. 
“ Bethulah ! ” I cried half-aloud. My neighbours 
smiled, and as I continued to stare at the figure, I saw 
it was only the bride, thus transmogrified for the 
wedding canopy. And then some startling half com¬ 
prehension came to me. Bethulah’s dress was a 
bride’s dress, then. She was made to appear a per¬ 
petual bride. Of whom? To what Cabalistic mys¬ 
tery was this the key? The Friday night hymn 
sprang to my mind. 

“ Oh, come, my beloved, to meet the Bride, 

The face of the Sabbath let us welcome.'” 

For a moment I thought I held the solution, and 
that my very first conjecture had been warranted. 
The Holy Queen Sabbath was also typified as the 
Sabbath Bride, and this dual allegory it was that 
Bethulah incarnated. Or perchance it was Israel, 
the Bride of God! 

But I was still dissatisfied. I felt that the truth 
lay deeper than a mere poetic metaphor or a poeti¬ 
cal masquerading. I discovered it at last, but at the 
risk of my life. 


BETHULAH 


223 


VI 

I continued to walk nightly on the narrow path 
between the mountain and the river, like the ghost 
of one drowned, but without a glimpse of Bethulah. 
At last it grew plain that her father had warned her 
against me, that she had changed the hour of her 
exercise and soul-ascension, or even the place. I was 
indebted to accident for my second vision of this 
strange creature. 

I had diverted myself by visiting the neighbouring 
village, a refreshing contrast to Jewish Zloczszol, 
from the rough garland-hung wayside crosses (which 
were like sign-posts to its gilt-towered church) to the 
peasant women in pink aprons and top boots. 

A marvellous sunset was well-nigh over as I struck 
the river-side that curved homewards. The bank was 
here very steep, the river running as between cliffs. 
In the sky great drifts of gold-flushed cloud hung 
like relics of the glory that had been, and the autumn 
leaves that muffled my mare’s footsteps seemed to 
have fallen from the sunset. In the background the 
white peak of the mountain was slowly parting with 
its volcanic splendour. And low on the horizon, like 
a small lake of fire in the heart of a tangled bush, 
the molten sun showed monstrous and dazzling. 

And straight from the sunset over the red leaves 
Bethulah came walking, rapt as in prophetic thought, 


224 


BETH UL AH 


shrouded and crowned, preceded by a long shadow 
that seemed almost as intangible. 

I reined in my horse and watched the apparition 
with a great flutter at my heart. And as I gazed, 
and thought of her grotesque worshippers, it was 
borne in upon me how unbefittingly Nature had 
peopled her splendid planet. The pageantry of 
dawn and sunset, of seas and mountains, how in¬ 
congruous a framework for our petty breed, sordidly 
crawling under the stars. Bethulah alone seemed 
fitted to the high setting of the scene. She matched 
this lone icy peak, this fiery purity. 

“Bethulah!” I said, as she was almost upon my 
horse. 

She looked up, and a little cry that might have 
been joy or surprise came from her lips. But by the 
smile that danced in her eyes and the blood that 
leapt to her cheeks, I saw with both joy and surprise 
that this second meeting was as delightful to her as 
to me. 

But the conscious Bethulah hastened to efface 
what the unconscious had revealed. “ It is not 
right of you, stranger, to linger here so long,” she 
said, frowning. 

“ I am your shadow,” I replied, “ and must linger 
where you linger.” 

“ But you are indeed a shadow, my father says 
— a being fashioned of the Poison God to work 


us woe. 


BETHULAH 


225 


“No, no,” I said, laughing; “my horse bears no 
shadow. And the Poison God who fashioned me 
is not the absurd horned and tailed tempter you 
have been taught to believe in, but a little rosy- 
winged god, with a bow and poisoned arrows.” 

“ A little rosy-winged god ? ” she said. “ I know 
of none such.” 

“And you know not of what you are queen,” I 
retorted, smiling. 

“ There is but one God,” she insisted, with sweet 
seriousness. “See, He burns in the bush, yet it is 
not consumed.” 

She pointed to where the red sinking sun seemed 
to eat out the heart of the bush through which 
we saw it. 

“Thus this love-god burns in our hearts,” I said, 
lifted up into her poetic strain, “and we are not 
consumed, only glorified.” 

I strove to touch her hand, which had dropped 
caressingly on my horse’s neck. But she drew back 
with a cry. 

“ I may not listen. This is the sinful talk my 
father warned me of. Fare you well, stranger.” 
And with swift step she turned homewards. 

I sat still a minute or two, half-disconcerted, half¬ 
content to gaze at her gracious motions; then I 
touched the mare with my heel, and she bounded 
off in pursuit. But at this instant three men in 
long gabardines and great round velvet hats started 


226 


BETHULAH 


forward from the thicket, shouting and waving 
lighted pine-branches, and my frightened animal 
reared and plunged, and then broke into a mad 
gallop, making straight for the river curve between 
the cliffs. I threw myself back in the saddle, tug¬ 
ging desperately at the creature’s mouth; but I 
might have been a child pulling at an elephant. 
I shook my feet free of the stirrups and prepared 
to tumble off as best I could, rather than risk the 
plunge into the river, when a projecting bough 
made me duck my head instinctively; but as I 
passed under it, with another instinctive movement 
I threw out my hands to clasp it, and, despite a 
violent wrench that seemed to pull my arms out 
of their sockets and swung my feet high forward, 
I hung safely. The mare, eased of my weight, 
was at the river-side the next instant, and with a 
wild, incredible leap alighted with her forefeet and 
the bulk of her body on the other bank, up which 
she scraped convulsively, and then stood still, trem¬ 
bling and sweating. I could not get at her, so, 
trusting she would find her way home safely, I 
dropped to the ground and ran back, with a mixed 
idea of finding Bethulah and chastising the three 
scoundrels. But all were become invisible. 

I walked half a mile across the plain to get to 
the rough pine bridge; and, once on the other 
bank, I had no difficulty in recovering the mare. 
She cantered up to me, indeed, and put her soft and 


BETHULAH 


227 


still perspiring nose in my palm and whinnied her 
apologetic congratulations on our common escape. 

I rode slowly home, reflecting on the new turn 
in my love affairs, for it was plain that Bethulah 
had now been provided with a body-guard, of which 
she was as unconscious as of her body itself. 

But for the apparent necessity of her making 
soul-ascensions under God’s heaven, I supposed she 
would not have been allowed to take the air at all 
with such a creature of Satan hovering. 

I stood sunning myself the next day on the 
same pine bridge, looking down on the swift cur¬ 
rent, and regretting there was no rail to lean on 
as one watched the fascinating flow of the beauti¬ 
ful river. It struck me as inordinately blue, — per¬ 
haps, I analyzed, by contrast with the long, sinuous 
weeds which here glided and tossed in the current 
like green water-snakes. These flexible greens re¬ 
minded me of the Wonder Rabbi’s eyes and his 
emerald seal; and I turned, with some sudden pre¬ 
monition of danger, just in time to dodge the 
attack of the same three ruffians, who must have 
been about to push me over. 

In an instant I had whipped out my pistol from 
my hip pocket, and cried, “ Stand, or I fire! ” 

The trio froze instantly in odd attitudes, which 
was lucky, as my pistol was unloaded. They looked 
almost comical in their air of abject terror. Their 
narrow, fanatical foreheads, with ringlets of piety 


228 


BETHULAH 


hanging down below the velvet, fur-trimmed hats, 
showed them more accustomed to murdering texts 
than men. Had I not been still smouldering over 
yesterday’s trick, I could have pitied them for the 
unwelcome job thrust upon their unskilled and ap¬ 
parently even unweaponed hands by the machina¬ 
tions of the Poison God and the orders of Ben David. 
One of them seemed quite elderly, and one quite 
young. The middle-aged one had a goitre, and per¬ 
haps that made me fancy him the most sinister, and 
keep my eye most warily upon him. 

“ Sons of Belial,” I said, recalling a biblical phrase 
that might be expected to prick, “ why do you seek 
my life ? ” 

Two of them cowered under my gaze, but the 
elderly Chassid , seeing the shooting was postponed, 
spoke up boldly: “We are no sons of Belial. You 
are the begotten of Satan; you are the arch enemy 
of Israel.” 

“ I ? ” I protested in my turn. “ I am a plain 
God-fearing son of Abraham.” 

“A precious scion of the Patriarch’s seed, who 
would delay the coming of the Messiah ! ” 

Again that incomprehensible accusation. 

“You speak riddles,” I said. 

“ How so ? Did you not tell Ben David— his horn 
be exalted—that you knew all concerning Bethulah ? 
Then must you know that of her immaculacy will 
the Messiah be born, one ninth of Ab.” 


BETHULAH 


229 


A flood of light burst upon me — mystic, yet clari¬ 
fying; blinding, yet dissipating my darkness. My 
pistol drooped in my hand. My head swam with a 
whirl of strange thoughts, and Bethulah, already 
divine to me, took on a dazzling aureola, sailed away 
into some strange supernatural ether. 

“ Have we not been in exile long enough ? ” said 
the youngest. “ Shall a godless stranger tamper 
with the hope of generations ? ” 

“ But whence this mad hope ? ” I said, struggling 
under the mystic obsession of his intensity. 

“ Mad ? ” began the first, his eyes spitting fire; 
but the younger interrupted him. 

“ Is not our saint the sole scion of the house of 
David? Is not his daughter the last of the race?” 

“ And what if she is ? ” 

“ Then who but she can be the destined mother of 
Israel’s Redeemer ? ” 

The goitred Chassid opened his lips and added, 
“ If not now, when ? as Hillel asked.” 

“ In our days at last must come the crowning glory 
of the house of Ben David,” the young man went on. 
“For generations now, since the signs have pointed 
to the millennium, have the daughters of the house 
been kept unwedded.” 

“ What! ” I cried. “ Generations of Bethidahs 
have been sacrificed to a dream ! ” 

Again the eyes of the first Chassid dilated danger¬ 
ously. I raised my pistol, but hastened to ask, in a 


230 


BETHULAH 


more conciliatory tone, “ Then how has the line been 
carried on ? ” 

“Through the sons, of course,” said the young 
Chassid. “ Now for the first time there are no sons, 
and only one daughter remains, the manifest vessel 
of salvation.” 

I tried to call up that image of bustling Broadway 
that had braced me in colloquy with the old Wonder 
Rabbi, but it seemed shadowy now, compared with 
this world of solid spiritualities which begirt me. 
Could it be the same planet on which such things 
went on simultaneously ? Or perhaps I was dream¬ 
ing, and these three grotesque creatures were the 
product of Yarchi’s cookery. 

But their hanging curls had a daylight definite¬ 
ness, and down in the sunlit, translucent river I could 
see every shade of colour, from the green of the sinu¬ 
ous reed-snakes to the brown of the moss patches. 

On the bank walked two crows, and I noted for the 
first time with what comic pomposity they paced, 
their bodies bent forward like two important old 
gentlemen with their hands in the pockets of their 
black coat tails. They brought a smile to my face, 
but a menacing movement of the Chassidim warned 
me to be careful. 

“And does the girl know all this?” I asked 
hurriedly. 

“ She did not yesterday,” said the elderly fellow. 
“ Now she has been told.” 


BETHULAH 


231 


There was another long pause. I meditated rapidly 
but disjointedly, having to keep an eye against 
a sudden rush of my assailants, and mistrusting 
the goitred saint yet the more because he was so 
silent. 

“And is Bethulah content with her destiny?” I 
asked. 

“ She is in the seventh heaven,” said the elderly 
saint. 

I had a poignant shudder of incredulous protest. 
I recalled the flush of her sweet face at the sight of 
me, and brief as our meetings had been, I dared to 
feel that the irrevocable thrill had passed between 
us; that the rest would have been only a question of 
time. 

“Let Bethulah tell me so herself,” I cried, “and I 
will leave her in her heaven.” 

The men looked at one another. Then the eldest 
shook his head. “ No ; you shall never speak to her 
again.” 

“ We have maidens more beautiful among us,” 
said the young man. “You shall have your choice. 
Ay, even my own betrothed would I give you.” 

I flicked aside his suggestion. “But you cannot 
prevent Bethulah walking under God’s heaven.” 
They looked dismayed. “ I will meet her,” I said, 
pursuing my advantage. “And Yarchi and other 
good Jews shall be at hand.” 

“She shall be removed elsewhere,” said the first. 


232 


BETHULAH 


“ I will track her down. Ah, you are afraid,” I 
said mockingly. “ You see it is not true that she is 
content to be immolated.” 

“ It is true,” they muttered. 

“ True as the Torah,” added the elderly man. 

“ Then there is no harm in her telling me so.” 

“You may bear her off on your horse,” said he of 
the goitre. 

“ I will go on foot. Let her bid me go away, and 
I will leave Zloczszol.” 

Again they looked at one another, and the relief 
in their eyes brought heart-sinking into mine. Yes, 
it was true. Bethulah was in the glow of a great 
surrender; she was still tingling with the revelation 
of her supreme destiny. To put her to the test now 
would be fatal. No; let her have time to meditate; 
ay, even to disbelieve. 

“To-morrow you shall speak with her, and no man 
shall know,” said the oldest Chassid. 

“ No, not to-morrow. In a week or two.” 

“Ah, you wish to linger among us,” he replied 
suspiciously. 

“ I will go away till the appointed day,” I replied 
readily. 

“ Good. Continue your travels. Let us say a 
month, or even two.” 

“ If you will not spirit her away in my absence.” 

“ It is as easy to do so in your presence.” 

“ So be it.” 


BETHULAH 


233 


“Shall we say—the eve of Chanukah?” he sug¬ 
gested. 

It was my turn to regard him suspiciously. But I 
could see nothing to cavil at. He had merely men¬ 
tioned an obvious date — that of the next festival 
landmark. Chanukah—the feast of rededication of 
the Temple after the Grecian pollution — the miracle 
of the unwaning oil, the memorial lighting of lights; 
there seemed nothing in these to work unduly upon 
the girl’s soul, except in so far as the inspiring tradi¬ 
tion of Judas Maccabseus might attach her more de¬ 
votedly to her conceptions of duty and self-dedica¬ 
tion. Perhaps, I thought, with a flash of jealous 
anger, they meditated a feast of rededication of her 
after the pollution of my presence had been removed. 
Well, we should see. 

“The eve of Chanukah,” I agreed, with a noncha¬ 
lant air. “ Only let the place be where I first met 
her — the path ’twixt mountain and river as you go 
to the cemetery.” 

That would at least be a counter-influence to 
Chanukah! As they understood none of the sub¬ 
tleties of love, they agreed to this, and I made them 
swear by the Name. 

When they went their way I stood pondering on 
the bridge, my empty pistol drooping in my hand, 
till sky and river glowed mystically as with blood, 
and the chill evening airs reminded me that Novem¬ 
ber was nigh. 


234 


BETHULAH 


VII 

I got to Warsaw and back in the time at my dis¬ 
posal, but not all the freshness and variety of my 
experiences could banish the thought of Bethulah. 
There were days when I could absorb myself in the 
passing panorama, but I felt always, so to speak, in 
the ante-chamber of the great moment of our third 
and decisive meeting. 

And with every shortening day of December that 
moment approached. Yet I all but missed it when it 
came. A snowfall I might easily have foreseen re¬ 
tarded my journey at the eleventh hour, but my 
faithful mare ploughed her way through the white 
morasses. As she munched her mid-day corn in that 
quaint Christian village that neighboured Zloczszol, 
and in which I had agreed to stable her, it was borne 
in on me for the first time that the eve of Chanukah 
was likewise Christmas eve. I wondered vaguely if 
there was any occult significance in the coincidence 
or in the Chassidic choice of dates; but it was too 
late now to protest, and loading my pistol against foul 
play, I hurried to the rendezvous. 

On the dark barren base of the mountain, patches 
of snow gleamed like winter blossoms ; the gargoyle¬ 
like faces of the jags of rock on the river-bank 
were white-bearded with icicles. Down below the 
stream raced, apparently as turbid as ever, but sud¬ 
denly, as it made a sharp curve and came under a 


BETHULAH 


235 


thick screen of snow-laden boughs interarching over 
the cleft, it grew glazed in death. 

The sight of Bethulah was as of a spirit of sun¬ 
shine moving across the white desolation. Her tall 
lone shadow fell blue upon the snowy path. She was 
swathed now in splendid silver furs, from which her 
face shone out like a tropical flower beneath its 
wreathed crown. 

Dignity and sovereignty had subtly replaced the 
grace of her movement, her very stature seemed ag¬ 
grandized by the consciousness of her unique mis¬ 
sion. 

She turned, and her virginal eyes met mine with 
abashing purity, and in that instant of anguished 
rapture I knew that my quest was vain. The deli¬ 
cate flush of joy and surprise touched her cheeks, in¬ 
deed, as before, but this time I felt it would not be 
succeeded by terror. Self-conscious now, self-poised, 
she stood regally where she had faltered and fled. 

“You return to spend Chanukah with us,” she said. 

“ I came,” I said, with uneasy bravado, “ in the 
hope of spending it elsewhere — with you.” 

“ But you know that cannot be,” she said gently. 

Ah, now she knew of what she was queen. But 
revolt was hot in my heart. 

“ Then they have made you share their dream,” I 
said bitterly. 

“Yes,” she replied, with unruffled sweetness. 
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of 




236 


BETHULAH 


those that bring good tidings ! ” And her eyes shone 
in exultation. 

“They were messengers of evil,” I said — “whis¬ 
perers of untruth. Life is for love and joy.” 

“Ah, no!” she urged tremulously. “ Surely you 
know the world — how full it is of suffering and sin.” 
And as with an unconscious movement, she threw 
back her splendid furs, revealing the weird shroud. 
“ Ah, what ecstasy to think that the divine day will 
come, ere I am old, when, as it is written in the 
twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, 1 He will destroy in 
this mountain the face of the covering cast over all 
people , and the vail that is spread over all nations. 
He will swallow up death in victory: and the Lord 
God will wipe away tears from off all faces ; and the 
rebuke of His people shall He take away from off all 
the K earth: for the Lord hath spoken ” 

Her own eyes were full of tears, which I yearned 
to kiss away. 

“ But your own life meantime ? ” I said softly. 

“ My life—does it not already take on the glory 
of God as this mountain the coming day ? ” 

She seemed indeed akin to the cold white peak as 
I had seen it flushed with sunrise. My passion 
seemed suddenly prosaic and selfish. I was lifted up 
into the higher love that worships and abnegates. 

“ God bless you ! ” I said, and turning away with 
misty vision, saw, creeping off, the three dark fanati¬ 
cal figures. 


BETHULAH 


237 


VIII 

Half a century later I was startled to find the name 
of Zloczszol in a headline of the Sunday edition of 
my American paper. 

I had married, and was even a grandfather; for 
after my return to America the world of Bethulah 
had grown fantastic, stupidly superstitious, and, 
finally, shadowy and almost unreal. Years and years 
of happiness had dissipated and obliterated the deli¬ 
cate fragrant dream of spiritual love. 

But that strange long-forgotten name stirred in¬ 
stantly the sleeping past to life. I adjusted my specta¬ 
cles and read the column eagerly. It was sensational 
enough, though not more so than a hundred columns 
of calamities in unknown places that one skips or 
reads with the mildest of thrills. 

The long-threatened avalanche had fallen, and 
Nature had once more rudely reminded man of his 
puny place in creation. Rare conditions had at last 
come together. First a slight fall of snow, covering 
the mountain — how vividly I pictured it! — then a 
sharp frost which had frozen this deposit; after that 
a measureless, blinding snow-storm and a cyclonic 
wind. When all seemed calm again, the second 
mass of snow had begun to slide down the frozen 
surface of the first, quickening to a terrific pace, 
tearing down the leafless trunks and shooting them 
at the village like giant arrows of the angry gods. 


238 


BETHULAH 


One of these arrows penetrated the trunk of a great 
cedar on the plain and stuck out on both sides, 
making a sort of cross, which the curious came from 
far and near to see. But, alas! the avalanche had 
not contented itself with such freakish manifes¬ 
tations; it had annihilated the new portion of the 
village which had dared crawl nearer the mountain 
when the railroad — a railroad in Zloczszol! — had 
found it cheaper to pass near the base than to make 
a circuit round the congested portion! 

Alas! the cheapness was illusory. The depot 
with its crowd had been wiped out as by the offended 
Fury of the mountain; though by another freakish 
incident, illustrating the Titanic forces at work, yet 
the one redeeming detail of the appalling catastrophe, 
a small train of three carriages that had just moved 
off was lifted up bodily by the terrible wind that raced 
ahead of the monstrous sliding snowball, and was 
clapped down in a field out of its reach, as if by a 
protecting hand. Not a creature on it was injured. 

I had passed the years allotted to man by the 
Psalmist, and my memory of the things of yesterday 
had begun to be faint and elusive, but the images 
of my Zloczszol adventure returned with a vividness 
that grew daily more possessive. What had become 
of Bethulah ? Was she alive ? Was she dead ? And 
which were the sadder alternative — to have felt the 
darkness of early death closing round the great hope, 
or to have survived its possibility, and old, bent, 


BETHULAH 


239 


bitter, and deserted by her followers, to await the 
lesser disenchantment of the grave ? 

An irresistible instinct impelled me — aged as I 
was myself — to revisit alone these scenes of my 
youth, to see how fate had rounded or broken off 
its grim ironic story. 

I pass over the stages of the journey, at the con¬ 
clusion of which I found myself again in the moun¬ 
tain village. Alas! The changes on the route had 
prepared me for the change in Zloczszol. Railroads 
threw their bridges over the gorges I had climbed, 
telegraph poles tamed the erst savage forest ways. 
And Zloczszol itself had now, by the line passing 
through it, expanded into a trading centre, with 
vitality enough to recuperate quickly from the ava¬ 
lanche. The hotel was clean and commodious, but 
I could better have endured that ancient sitting-room 
in which the squalling baby was rocked. Strange, 
I could see its red wrinkled face, catch the very 
timbre of its piping cries! Only the mountain was 
unchanged, and the pines and firs that had whispered 
dreams to my youth whispered sleep to my age. Ah, 
how frail and futile is the life of man! He passes 
like a shadow, and the green sunlit earth he trod on 
closes over him and takes the tread of the new gener¬ 
ations. What had I to say to these new, smart 
people in Zloczszol ? No, the dead were my gossips 
and neighbours. For me more than the avalanche 
had desolated Zloczszol. I repaired to the cemetery. 


240 


BETHULAH 


There I should find Yarchi. It was no use looking 
for him under the porch of the pine cottage. And 
there, too, I should in all likelihood find Bethulah ! 

But Ben David’s tomb was the first I found, carved 
with the intersecting triangles. The date showed 
he had died very soon after my departure; perhaps, 
I thought remorsefully, my importunities had agi¬ 
tated him too much. Ah! there at last was Yarchi. 
Under a high white stone he slept as soundly as any 
straight corpse. His sneering mouth had crumbled 
to dust, but I would have given much to hear it once 
more abuse the Chassidim. Propped on my stick 
and poring over the faded gilt letters, I recalled “the 
handsome stranger” whom the years had marred. 
But of Bethulah I saw no sign. I wandered back 
and found the turreted house, but it had been con¬ 
verted into a large store, and from Bethulah’s turret 
window hung a great advertising sky-sign. 

I returned cheerlessly to the hotel, but as the sun 
began to pierce auspiciously through the bleakness 
of early March, I was about to sally forth again in the 
direction of Yarchi’s ancient cottage, when the porter 
directed me — as if I were a mere tourist — to go to 
see the giant cedar of Lebanon with its Titanic arrow. 
However, I followed his instructions, and pretty soon 
I espied the broad-girthed tree towering over its field, 
with the foreign transpiercing trunk about fifteen 
feet from the ground, making indeed a vast cross. 
Leaning against the sunlit cedar was a white-robed 


BETHULAH 


241 


figure, and as I hobbled nearer I saw by the shroud 
and the crown of flowers that I had found Bethu- 
lah. 

At my approach she drew herself up in statuesque 
dignity, upright as Ben David of yore, and looked at 
me with keen unclouded eyes. There was a won¬ 
drous beauty of old age in her face and bearing. 
The silver hair banded on the temples glistened 
picturesquely against the reds and greens and golds 
of her crown. 

“Ah, stranger ! ” she said, with a gracious smile. 
“ You return to us.” 

“ You recognize me? ” I mumbled, in amaze. 

“ It is the face I loved in youth,” she said simply. 

Strange, happy, wistful tears sprang to my old eyes 
— some blurred sense of youth and love and God. 

“Your youth seems with you still,” I said. “Your 
face is as sweet, your voice as full of music.” 

The old ecstatic look lit up her eyes. “ It is God 
who keeps me ever young, till the great day dawns.” 

I was taken aback. What! She believed still! 
That alternative had not figured in my prevision of 
pathetic closes. I was silent, but the old tumult of 
thought raged within me. 

“ But is not the day passed forever ? ” I murmured 
at last. 

The light in her eyes became queenly fire. 

“ While there is life,” she cried, “in the veins of the 
house of Ben David ! ” And as she spoke my eye 


242 


BETHULAH 


caught the gleam of the Persian emerald on her fore¬ 
finger. 

“And your worshippers — what of them? ” I asked. 

Her eyes grew sad. “After my father’s death — 
his memory for a blessing! — the pilgrims fell off, 
and when the years passed without the miracle, his 
followers even here in Zloczszol began to weaken. 
And slowly a new generation arose, impatient and 
lax, which believed not in the faith of their forefathers 
and mocked my footsteps, saying, ‘ Behold! the 
dreamer cometh ! ’ And then the black fire-monster 
came, whizzing daily to and fro on the steel lines and 
breathing out fumes of unfaith, and the young men 
said lo! there is our true Redeemer. Wherefore, as 
the years waxed and waned, until at last advancing 
Death threw his silver shadow on my hair, even the 
faithful grew to doubt, and they said, ‘ But a few short 
years more and death must claim her, her mission 
unfulfilled, and the lamp of Israel’s hope shattered 
forever. Perchance it is we that have misunderstood 
the prophecies. Not here, not here, shall God’s great 
miracle be wrought; this is not holy ground. “ For 
the Lord dwelleth in Zion,” ’ they cried with the 
Prophets. Only on the sacred soil, outside of which 
God has never revealed himself, only in Palestine, 
they said, can Israel’s Redeemer be born. As it 
is written, ‘ But upon Mount Zion shall be deliver¬ 
ance, and there shall be holiness.’ 

“ Then these and the scoffers persuaded me, seeing 


BETHULAH 


243 


that I waxed very old, and I sold my father’s house — 
now grown of high value — to obtain the money for 
the journey, and I made ready to start for Jerusalem. 
There had been a whirlwind and a great snow the 
day before and I would have tarried, but they said I 
must arrive in the Holy City ere the eve of Chanu¬ 
kah. And putting off my shroud and my crown, 
seeing that only in Jerusalem I might be a bride, I 
trusted myself to the fire-monster, and a vast com¬ 
pany went with me to the starting-place — both of 
those who believed that salvation was of Zion and 
those who scoffed. But the monster had scarcely 
crawled out under God’s free heaven than God’s 
hand lifted me up and those with me — for my bless¬ 
edness covered them — and put us down very far off, 
while a great white thunder-bolt fell upon the build¬ 
ing and upon the scoffers and upon those who had 
prated of Zion, and behold! they were not. The 
multitude of Moab was as straw trodden down for 
the dunghill, and the high fort of the fire-monster 
was brought down and laid low and brought to the 
ground, even to the dust. Then arose a great cry 
from all the town and the mountain, and a rending of 
garments and a weeping in sackcloth. And many re¬ 
turned to the faith in me, for God’s hand has shown 
that here, and not elsewhere, is the miracle to be 
wrought. As it is written, word for word, in the 
twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah: — 

“‘And He will destroy in this mountain the face 


244 


BETHULAH 


of the covering cast over all people, and the vail 
that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up 
death in victory; and the Lord God shall wipe away 
tears from off all faces: and the rebuke of His people 
shall He take away from off all the earth: for the 
Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that 
day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, 
and He will save us: this is the Lord; we have waited 
for Him, zve will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. 
For in this mountain shall the hand of the Lord rest, 
and Moab shall be trodden down imder Him, even as 
straw is trodden down for the dunghill. And He 
shall spread forth His hands in the midst of them, 
as he that swimmeth spreadeth forth to sivim: and He 
shall bring down their pride together with the spoils 
of their hands. And the fortress of the high fort of thy 
walls shall He bring down, lay low, and bring to the 
ground, even to the dustl 

“ And here in this cedar of Lebanon, transplanted 
like Israel under the shadow of this alien mountain, 
the Lord has shot a bolt, for a sign to all that can 
read. And here I come daily to pray, and to await 
the divine moment.” 

She ceased, and her eyes turned to the now stain¬ 
less heaven. And as I gazed upon her shining face 
it seemed to me that the fresh flowers and leaves of 
her crown, still wet with the dew, seen against that 
garment of death and the silver of decaying life, were 
symbolic of an undying, ever rejuvenescent hope. 


BETHULAH 


245 


IX 

A last surprise awaited me. Bethulah now lived 
all alone in Yarchi’s pine cottage, which the years 
had left untouched. 

Whether accident or purpose settled her there I 
do not know, but my heart was overcharged with 
mingled emotion as I went up the garden the next 
day to pay her a farewell visit. The poppies flaunted 
riotously amid the neglected maize, but the cottage 
itself seemed tidy. 

It was the season when the cold wrinkled lips of 
winter meet the first kiss of spring, and death is 
passing into resurrection. It was the hour when 
the chill shadows steal upon the sunlit day. In the 
sky was the shot purple of a rolling moor, merging 
into a glow of lovely green. 

I stood under the porch where Yarchi had been 
wont to sun and snuff himself, and knocked at the 
door, but receiving no answer, I lifted the latch softly 
and looked in. 

Bethulah was at her little table, her head lying on 
a great old Bible which her arms embraced. One 
long finger of departing sunlight pointed through 
the window and touched the flowers on the gray 
hair. I stole in with a cold fear that she was dead. 
But she seemed only asleep, with that sleep of old 
age which is so near to death and is yet the renewal 
of life. 


246 


BETHULAH 


I was curious to see what she had been reading. 
It was the eighteenth chapter of Genesis, and in the 
shadow of her crown ran the verses: — 

“ And the Lord said unto Abraham , Wherefore did 
Sarah laugh , saying , Shalt I of a surety bear a child y 
which am old ? 

“Is anything too hard for the Lord? ” 


VII 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 











VII 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 

I 

Salvina Brill walked to and fro in the dingy 
Hackney Terrace, waiting till her mother should 
return with the house-key. So far as change of 
scene was concerned the little pupil-teacher might 
as well have stood still. Everywhere bow-windows, 
Venetian blinds, little front gardens — all that had 
represented domestic grandeur to her after a child¬ 
hood of apartments in Spitalfields, though her sub¬ 
sequent glimpse of the West End home in which her 
sister Kitty was governess, had made her dazedly 
aware of Alps beyond Alps. 

Though only seventeen, Salvina was not superfi¬ 
cially sweet and could win no consideration from the 
seated males in the homeward train, and the heat of 
the weather and the crush of humanity—high hats 
sandwiched between workmen’s tool-baskets — had 
made her head ache. Her day at the Whitechapel 
school had already been trying, and Thursday was 
always heavy with the accumulated fatigues of the 
week. It was unfortunate that her mother should 
be late, but she remembered how at breakfast the 
249 


250 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


good creature had promised father to make a little 
excursion to the Borough and take a packet of tea 
to the house of some distant relatives of his, who 
were sitting shivah (seven days’ mourning). The 
non-possession of a servant made it necessary to 
lock up the house and pull down the blinds, when 
its sole occupant went visiting. 

After a few minutes of vain expectation, Salvina 
mechanically returned to her Greek grammar, which 
opened as automatically at the irregular verbs. She 
had just achieved the greatest distinction of her life, 
and one not often paralleled in Board School girl- 
circles, by matriculating at the London University. 
Hers was only a second-class pass, but gained by 
private night-study, supplemented by some evening 
lessons at the People’s Palace, it was sufficiently 
remarkable; especially when one considered she had 
still other subjects tp prepare for the Centres. Sal¬ 
vina was now audaciously aiming at the Bachelor¬ 
hood of Arts, for which the Greek verbs were far 
more irregular. It was not only the love of know¬ 
ledge that animated her: as a bachelor she might 
become a head-mistress, nay, might even aspire to 
follow the lead of her dashing elder sister and teach 
in a wealthy family that treated you as one of itself. 
Not that Kitty had ever matriculated, but an ugly 
duckling needs many plumes of learning ere it can 
ruffle itself like a beautiful swan. 

Who should now come upon the promenading stu- 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


251 


dent but Sugarman the Shadchan, his hand full of 
papers, and his blue bandanna trailing from his left 
coat-tail! 

“ Ah, you are the very person I was coming to 
see,” he cried gleefully in his corrupt German ac¬ 
cent. “ What is your sister’s address now ? ” 

“ Why ? ” said Salvina distrustfully. 

“ I have a fine young man for her! ” 

Salvina’s pallid cheek coloured with modesty and 
resentment. “ My sister doesn’t need your services.” 

“ Maybe not,” said Sugarman, unruffled. “ But 
the young man does. He saw your sister once 
years ago, before he went to the Cape. Now he is 
a Takif (rich man) and wants a wife.” 

“ He’s not rich enough to buy Kitty.” Salvina’s 
romantic soul was outraged, and she spoke with un¬ 
wonted asperity. 

“ He is rich enough to buy Kitty all she wants. 
He is quite in love with her — she can ask for any¬ 
thing.” 

“ Then let him go and tell her so himself. What 
does he come to you for? He must be a very poor 
lover.” 

“ Poor! I tell you he is rolling in gold. It’s the 
luckiest thing that could have happened to your 
family. You will all ride in your carriage. You 
ought to fall on your knees and bless me. Your 
sister is not so young any more, at nineteen a girl 
can’t afford to sniff. Believe me there are thousands 


252 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


of girls who would jump at the chance — yes, girls 
with dowries, too. And your sister hasn’t a penny.” 

“My sister has a heart and a soul,” retorted Sal- 
vina witheringly, “ and she wants a heart and a soul 
to sympathize with hers, not a money-bag.” 

“Then, won’t you take a ticket for the lott eree?” 
rejoined Sugarman pleasantly. “Then you get a 
money-bag of your own.” 

“ No, thank you.” 

“ Not even half a ticket? Only thirty-six shillings! 
You needn’t pay me now. I trust you.” 

She shook her head. 

“But think — I may win you the great prize — a 
hundred thousand marks.” 

The sum fascinated Salvina, and for an instant her 
imagination played with its marvellous potentialities. 
They could all move to the country, and there among 
the birds and the flowers she could study all day 
long, and even try for a degree with Honours. Her 
father would be saved from the cigar factory, her 
sister from exile amid strangers, her mother should 
have a servant, her brother the wife he coveted. All 
her Spitalfields circle had speculated through Sugar- 
man, not without encouraging hits. She smiled as 
she remembered the vendor of slippers who had won 
sixty pounds and was so puffed up that when his 
wife stopped in the street to speak to a shabby ac¬ 
quaintance, he cried vehemently, “ Betsey, Betsey, 
do learn to behave according to your station.” 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


253 


“You don’t believe me?” said Sugarman, mis¬ 
apprehending her smile. “You can read it all for 
yourself. A hundred thousand marks, so sure my 
little Nehemiah shall see rejoicings. Look!” 

But Salvina waved back the thin rustling papers 
with their exotic Continental flavour. “ Gambling is 
wicked,” she said. 

Sugarman was incensed. “ Me in a wicked busi¬ 
ness ! Why, I know more Talmud than anybody in 
London, and can be called up the Law as Morenu ! 
You’ll say marrying is wicked, next. But they are 
both State Institutions. England is the only country 
in the world without a lottery.” 

Salvina wavered, but her instinct was repugnant to 
money that did not accumulate itself by slow, painful 
economies, and her multifarious reading had made 
the word “ Speculation ” a prism of glittering vice. 

“ I daresay you think it’s not wrong,” she said, 
“and I apologize if I hurt your feelings. But don’t 
you see how you go about unsettling people ? ” 

“ Me! Why, I settle them ! And if you’d only 
give me your sister’s address — ” 

His persistency played upon Salvina’s delicate 
conscience; made her feel she must not refuse the 
poor man everything. Besides, the grand address 
would choke him off. 

“ She’s at Bedford Square, with the Samuelsons.” 

“Ah, I know. Two daughters, Lily and Mabel,” 
and Sugarman instead of being impressed nodded 


254 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


his head, as if even the Samuelsons were mortal and 
marriageable. 

“Yes, my sister is their governess and companion. 
But you’ll only waste your time.” 

“ You think so ? ” he said triumphantly. “ Look 
at this likeness ! ” 

And he drew out the photograph of a coarse-faced 
middle-aged man, with a jaunty flower in his frock- 
coat and a prosperous abdomen supporting a heavily 
trinketed watch-chain. Underneath swaggered the 
signature, “Yours truly, Moss M. Rosenstein.” 

Salvina shuddered: “ He was wise to send you” 
she said slyly. 

“Is it not so ? Ah, and your brother, too, would 
have done better to come to me instead of falling in 
love with a girl with a hundred pounds. But I bear 
your family no grudge, you see. Perhaps it is not 
too late yet. Tell Lazarus that if he should come to 
break with the Jonases, there are better fish in the 
sea — gold fish, too. Good-bye. We shall both dance 
at your sister’s wedding.” And he tripped off. 

Salvina resumed her Greek, but the grotesque 
aorists could not hold her attention. She was hun¬ 
gry and worn out, and even when her mother came, 
it would be some time before her evening meal could 
be prepared. She felt she must sit down, if only on 
her doorsteps, but their whiteness was inordinately 
marred as by many dirty boots — she wondered whose 
and why — and she had to content herself with lean- 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


255 


ing against the stucco balustrade. And gradually as 
the summer twilight faded, the grammar dropped in 
her hand, and Salvina fell a-dreaming. 

What did she dream of, this Board School drudge, 
whose pasty face was craned curiously forward on 
sloping shoulders ? Was it of the enchanted land of 
love of which Sugarman had reminded her, but over 
whose roses he had tramped so grossly ? Alas! 
Sugarman himself had never thought of her as a 
client for any but the lottery section of his business. 
Within, she was one glow of eager romance, of 
honour, of quixotic duty, but no ray of this pierced 
without to give a sparkle to the eye, a colour to the 
cheek. No faintest dash of coquetry betrayed the 
yearning of the soul or gave grace to walk or gesture : 
her dress was merely a tidy covering. Her exquisite 
sensibility found bodily expression only as a clumsy 
shyness. 

Poor Salvina! 


II 

At last the welcome jar and creak of the gate 
awoke her. 

“ Why, I thought you knew I had to go to the Bor¬ 
ough ! ” began a fretful voice, forestalling reproach, 
and a buxom woman resplendent with black satin 
and much jewellery came up the tiny garden-path. 

“ It doesn’t matter, mother — I haven’t been wait¬ 
ing long.” 


256 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“ Well, you know how difficult it is to get a ’bus in 
this weather — at least if you want to sit outside, 
and it always makes my head ache frightfully to go 
inside — I’m not strong and young like you — and 
such a long way, I had to change at the Bank, and 
I made sure you’d get something to eat at one of the 
girls’, and go straight to the People’s Palace.” 

Still muttering, Mrs. Brill produced a key, and 
after some fumbling threw open the door. Both 
made a step within, then both stopped, aghast. 

“It’s the wrong house,” thought Salvina confusedly, 
conscious of her power of making such mistakes. 

“ Kisshuf (witchcraft)! ” whispered her mother, 
terrified into her native idiom. The passage lay 
before them, entirely bare of all its familiar colour 
and furniture: the framed engravings depicting the 
trials of William Lord Russell, in the Old Bailey, 
and Earl Stafford in Westminster Hall, the flower¬ 
pots on the hall table, the proudly purchased hat- 
rack, the metal umbrella-stand, all gone! And 
beyond, facing them, lay the parlour, an equally for¬ 
lorn vacancy striking like a blast of chilly wind 
through its wide-open door. 

“ Thieves! ” cried Mrs. Brill, reverting from the 
supernatural and the Yiddish. “ Murder! I’m 
ruined ! They’ve stolen my house ! ” 

“ Hush ! Hush ! ” said Salvina, strung to calm by 
her mother’s incoherence. “ Let us see first what 
has really happened.” 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


267 


“ Happened ! Haven’t you got eyes in your head ? 
All the fruit of my years of toil! ” And Mrs. Brill 
wrung her jewelled hands. “ Your father would 
have me call on those Sperlings, though I told him 
they’d be glad to dance on my tomb. And why 
didn’t Lazarus stay at home ? ” 

“ You know he has to be out looking for work.” 

“ And my gilt clock that I trembled even to wind 
up, and the big vase with the picture on it, and my 
antimacassars, and my beautiful couch that nobody 
had ever sat upon ! Oh my God, oh my God! ” 

Leaving her mother moaning out a complete in¬ 
ventory in the passage, Salvina advanced into the 
violated parlour. It was an aching void. On the 
bare mantelpiece, just where the gilt clock had an¬ 
nounced a perpetual half-past two, gleamed an un¬ 
stamped letter. She took it up wonderingly. It was 
in her father’s schoolboyish hand, addressed to her 
mother. She opened it, as usual, for Mrs. Brill did 
not even know the alphabet, and refused steadily to 
make its acquaintance, to the ironic humiliation of 
the Board School teacher. 

“ You would not let me give you Get ,” [ran the letter abruptly], 
“so you have only yourself to blame. I have left the clothes in 
the bed-rooms, but what is mine is mine. Good-bye. 

“Michael Brill. 

“P.S.— Don’t try to find me at the factory. I have left.” 

Salvina steadied herself against the mantelpiece 
till the room should have finished reeling round. 


258 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


Get! Her father had wanted to put away her 
mother! Divorce, departure, devastation — what 
strange things were these, come to wreck a prosper¬ 
ity so slowly built up ! 

“ Quick, Salvina, there goes a policeman ! ” came 
her mother’s cry. 

The room stood still suddenly. “ Hush, hush, 
mother,” Salvina said imperiously. “ There’s no 
thief! ” She ran back into the passage, the letter 
in her hand. 

A fierce flame of intelligence leapt into the 
woman’s face. “ Ah, it’s your father ! ” she cried. 
“ I knew it, I knew he’d go after that painted widow, 
just because she has a little money, a black curse on 
her bones. Oh! oh! God in heaven ! To bring 
such shame on me, for the sake of a saucy-nosed 
slut whose sister sold ironmongery in Petticoat Lane 
— a low lot, one and all, and not fit to wipe my shoes 
on, even when she was respectable, and this is what 
you call a father, Salvina ! Oh my God, my God ! ” 

Salvina was by this time dazed, yet she bad a 
gleam of consciousness left with which to register 
this culminating destruction of all her social land¬ 
marks. What! That monstrous wickedness of 
marquises and epauletted officers which hovered 
vaguely in the shadow-land of novels and plays had 
tumbled with a bang into real life; had fallen not 
even into its natural gilded atmosphere, but through 
the amulet-guarded doors of a respectable Jewish 



THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


259 


family in the heart of a Hackney Terrace, amid the 
horsehair couches and deal tables of homely reality. 
Nay — more sordid than the romantic wickedness of 
shadowland — it had even removed those couches 
and tables ! And oddly blent with this tossing chaos 
of new thought in Salvina’s romantic brain surged 
up another thought, no less new and startling. Her 
father and mother had once loved each other! They, 
too, had dawned upon each other, fairy prince and 
fairy princess; had laid in each other’s hand that 
warm touch of trust and readiness to live and die for 
each other. It was very wonderful, and she almost 
forgot their hostile relationship in a rapid back- 
glance upon the years in which they had lived in 
mutual love before her unsuspecting eyes. Their 
prosaic bickering selves were transfigured : her vivid 
imagination threw off the damage of the years, saw 
her coarse, red-cheeked father and her too plump 
mother as the idyllic figures on the lamented parlour 
vase. And when her thought struggled painfully 
back to the actual moment, it was with a new con¬ 
crete sense of its tragic intensity. 

“O mother, mother!” she cried, as she threw 
her arms round her. The Greek grammar and the 
letter fell unregarded to the floor. 

The fountain of Mrs. Brill’s wrongs leapt higher 
at the sympathy. “ And I could have had half- 
a-dozen young men! The boils of Egypt be upon 
him! Time after time I said, ‘No,’ though the 


260 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


Shadchan bewitched my parents into believing that 
Michael was an angel without wings.” 

“ But you also thought father an angel,” Salvina 
pleaded. 

“Yes; and now he has got wings,” said Mrs. 
Brill savagely. 

Salvina’s tears began to ooze out. Poor swain 
and shepherdess on the parlour vase! Was this, 
then, how idylls ended ? “ Perhaps he’ll come 

back,” she murmured. 

The wife snorted viciously. “ And my furniture ? 
The beautiful furniture I toiled and scraped for, 
that he always grumbled at, though I saved it out 
of the housekeeping money, without its costing him 
a penny, and no man in London had better meals, 
— hot meat every day and fish for Sabbath, even 
when plaice were eightpence a pound, — and no 
servant — every scrap of work done with my own 
two hands! Now he carts everything away as if 
it were his.” 

“ I suppose it is by law,” Salvina said mildly. 

“ Law ! I’ll have the law on him.” 

“ Oh, no, mother ! ” and Salvina shuddered. “ Be¬ 
sides, he has left our clothes.” 

Mrs. Brill’s eye lit up. “ I see no clothes.” 

“ In our rooms. The letter says so.” 

“ And you still believe what he says ? ” She 
began to mount the stairs. “ I am sure he packed 
in my Paisley shawl while he was about it. It is 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


261 


fortunate I wore all my jewellery. And you al¬ 
ways say I put on too much! ” 

Sustained by this unanswerable vindication of her 
past policy, Mrs. Brill ascended the stairs without 
further wailing. 

Salvina, whose sense of romance never exalted 
her above the practical, remembered now that her 
brother Lazarus might come back at any moment 
clamorously hungry. This pinned her to the con¬ 
crete moment. How to get him some supper! 
And her mother, too, must be faint and tired. She 
ran into the kitchen, and found enough odds and 
ends left to make a meal, and even a cracked tea¬ 
pot and a few coarse cups not worth carrying 
away; and, with a sense of Robinson Crusoe ad¬ 
venture, she extracted light, heat, and cheerfulness 
from the obedient gas branch, which took on the 
air of a case of precious goods not washed away 
in the household wreck. When her mother at last 
came down, cataloguing the wardrobe salvage in 
picturesque Yiddish, Salvina stopped her curses with 
hot tea. They both drank, leaning against the 
kitchen-dresser, which served for a table for the cups. 

Salvina’s Crusoe excitement increased when her 
mother asked her where they were to sleep, seeing 
that even the beds had been spirited away. 

“ I have five shillings in my purse; I’ll go out 
and buy a cheap mattress. But then there’s Laza¬ 
rus ! Oh dear ! ” 


262 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“ Lazarus has his own bed. Yes, yes, thank 
God, we’ll be able to borrow his wedding furnh 
ture.” 

“ But it’s all stored away in the Jonas’s attic.” 

A smart rat-tat at the door denoted the inoppor¬ 
tune return of Lazarus himself. Salvina darted 
upstairs to let him in and break the shock. He 
was a slimmer and more elegant edition of his 
father, a year older than Kitty, and taller than 
Salvina by a jaunty head and shoulders. 

“ And why isn’t the hall lafnp alight ? ” he 
queried, as her white face showed itself in the 
dusky door-slit. “ It looks so beastly shabby. The 
only light’s in the kitchen; I daresay you and 
the mater are pigging there again. Why can’t 
you live up to your position ? ” 

The unexpected reproach broke her down. “ We 
have no position any more,” she sobbed out. And 
all the long years of paralyzing economies swept 
back to her memory, all the painful progress — 
accelerated by her growing salary — from the 
Hounsditch apartments to the bow-windows and 
gas-chandeliers of Hackney! 

“What do you mean? What is the matter? 
Speak, you little fool! Don’t cry.” He came 
across the threshold and shook her roughly. 

“ Father’s run away with the furniture and some 
woman,” she explained chokingly. 

“ The devil! ” The smart cane slipped from his 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


263 


fingers and he maintained his cigar in his mouth with 
difficulty. “ Do you mean to say the old man has 
gone and — the beastly brute ! The selfish hypo¬ 
crite ! But how could he get the furniture ? ” 

“ He made mother go on a visit to the Borough.” 

“ The old fox ! That’s your religious chaps. I’ll 
go and give ’em both brimstone. Where are they ? ” 
“ I don’t know where—but you must not — it is 
all too horrible. There’s nothing even to sleep on. 
We thought of borrowing your furniture ! ” 

“ What! And give the whole thing away to the 
Jonases—and lose Rhoda, perhaps. Good heavens, 
Sally. Don’t be so beastly selfish. Think of the 
disgrace, if we can’t cover it up.” 

“ The disgrace is for father, not for you.” 

“ Don’t be an idiot. Old Jonas looked down on us 
enough already, and if it hadn’t been for Kitty’s call¬ 
ing on him in the Samuelsons’ carriage, he might 
never have consented to the engagement.” 

“ Oh, dear! ” said Salvina, melted afresh by this 
new aspect. “ My poor Lazarus ! ” and she gazed 
dolefully at the handsome youth who had divided 
with Kitty the good looks of the family. “ But still,” 
she added consolingly, “ you couldn’t have married 
for a long time, anyhow.” 

“ I don’t know so much. I had a very promising 
interview this afternoon with the manager of Granders 
Brothers, the big sponge-people.” 

“ But you don’t understand travelling in sponge.” 


264 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“ Pooh ! Travelling’s travelling. There’s nothing 
to understand. Whatever the article is, you just tell 
lies about it.” 

“Oh, Lazarus! ” 

“ Don’t make eyes — you ain’t pretty enough. 
What do you know of the world, you who live mewed 
up in a Board School ? I daresay you believe all the 
rot you have to tell the little girls.” 

Her brother’s shot made a wound he had not in¬ 
tended. Salvina was at last reminded of her own 
relation to the sordid tragedy, of what the other 
teachers would think, ay, even the little girls, so 
sharp in all that did not concern school-learning. 
Would her pupils have any inkling of the cloud on 
teacher’s home ? Ah, her brother was right. This 
disgrace besplashed them all, and she saw herself con¬ 
fusedly as a tainted figure holding forth on honour 
and duty to rows of white pinafores. 

Ill 

Meantime, her mother had toiled up — her jewels 
glittering curiously in the dusk — and now poured 
herself out to the fresh auditor in a breathless wail; 
recapitulated her long years of devotion and the 
abstracted contents of the house. But Lazarus soon 
wearied of the inventory of her virtues and furniture. 

“What’s the use of crying over spilt milk?” he 
said. “You must get a new jug.” 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 265 

“ A new jug ! And what about the basin and the 
coffee-pot and the saucepans and the plates ! And 
my new blue dish with the willow-pattern. Oh, my 
God! ” 

“ Don’t be so stupid.” 

“ She’s a little dazed, Lazarus, dear. Have patience 
with her. Lazarus says it’s no use crying and letting 
the neighbours hear you : we must make the best of 
a bad job, and cover it up.” 

“ You’ll soon cover me up. I won’t need my 
clothes then — only a clean shroud. After twenty 
years — he wipes his mouth and he goes away! 
Tear the rent in your garments, children mine, your 
mother is dead.” 

“ How can any one have patience with her ? ” cried 
Lazarus. “ One would think it was such a treat for 
her to live with father. Judging by the rows you’ve 
had, mother, you ought to be thankful to be rid of 
him.” 

“ I am thankful,” she retorted hysterically. “Who 
said I wasn’t? A grumbling, grunting pig, who 
grudged me my horsehair couch because he couldn’t 
sit on it. Well, let him squat on it now with his 
lady. I don’t care. All my enemies will pity me, 
will they ? If they only knew how glad I was! ” 
and she broke into more sobs. 

“ Come, mother; come downstairs, Lazarus : don’t 
let us stay up in the dark.” 

“ Not me,” said Lazarus. 


“ I’m not going down 


266 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


to hear this all over again. Besides, where am I to 
sit or to sleep ? I must go to an hotel.” He struck 
a match to relight his cigar and it flared weirdly upon 
the tear-smudged female faces. “Got any money, 
Salvina,” he said more gently. 

“Only five shillings.” 

“Well, I daresay I can manage on that. Good¬ 
night, mother, don’t take on so, it’ll be all the same 
a hundred years hence.” He opened the door; 
then paused with his hand on the knob, and said 
awkwardly: “ I suppose you’ll manage to find some¬ 
thing to sleep on just for to-night.” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Salvina reassuringly ; “ we’ll man¬ 
age. Don’t worry, dear.” 

“ I’ll be in the first thing in the morning. We’ll 
have a council of war. Good-night. It is a beastly 
mean trick,” and he went out meditatively. 

When he was gone, Salvina remembered that the 
five shillings were for the mattress. But she further 
bethought herself that the sum would scarcely have 
sufficed even for a straw mattress, and that the little 
gold ring Kitty had given her when she matriculated 
would fetch more. Her mother’s jewellery must be 
left sacred ; the poor creature was smarting enough 
from the sense of loss. Bidding her sit on the stairs 
till she returned, she hastened into Mare Street, the 
great Hackney highway, christened “ The Devil’s 
Mile ” by the Salvation Army. Early experience 
had familiarized her with the process of pawning, 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


267 


but now she slipped furtively into the first pawn¬ 
shop and did not stay to make a good bargain. She 
spent on a telegram to the central post-office six¬ 
pence of the proceeds, so that she might be able to 
draw out without delay the few pounds she had laid 
by for her summer holiday. While she was pur¬ 
chasing the mattress at the garishly illuminated fur¬ 
niture store, the words “ Hire System ” caught her 
eye, and seemed a providential solution of the posi¬ 
tion. She broached negotiations for the furnishing 
of a bed-room and a kitchen, minus carpet and oil¬ 
cloth (for these would not fit the cheaper apartments 
into which they would now have to revert), but she 
found there were tedious formalities to be gone 
through, and that her own signature would be in¬ 
valid, as she was legally a child. However, she was 
able to secure the porterage of the mattress at once, 
and, followed by a bending Atlas, she hurried back 
to her mother— who sat on her stair, moaning — and 
diverted her from her griefs by teaching her to sign 
her name, in view of the legal exigencies of the 
morrow. It was a curious wind-up to her day’s 
teaching. Poor Mrs. Brill’s obstinate objection to 
education had to give way at last under such unex¬ 
pected conditions, but she insisted on the shortest 
possible spelling, and so the uncouth “ Esther Brills ” 
pencilled at the top of the sheet were exchanged for 
more flowing “ E. Brills ” lower down. Even then, 
the good woman took the thing as a pictorial flourish, 


268 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


or a section of a map, and disdained acquaintance 
with the constituent letters, so that her progress in 
learning remained only nominal. 

Then the “ infant ” at law put her mother to bed 
and lay down beside her on the mattress, both in 
their clothes for lack of blankets. The mother soon 
dozed off, but the “ child ” lay turning from side to 
side. The pressure of her little tasks had dulled the 
edge of emotion, but now, in the silence of the night, 
the whole tragic position came back with all its sor¬ 
did romanticism, its pathetic meanness; and when 
at last she slept, its obsession lay heavy upon her 
dreams, and she sat at her examination desk in the 
London University, striving horridly to recall the 
irregularities of Greek verbs, and to set them down 
with a pen that could never dip up any ink, while 
the inexorable hands of the clock went round, and 
her father, in the coveted Bachelor’s gown, waited to 
spirit away her desk and seat as soon as the hour 
should strike. 

IV 

The next morning Salvina should have awakened 
with a sense through all her bones that it was Friday 
— the last day of the school-week, harbinger of such 
blessed rest that the mere expectation of it was also 
a rest. Alas ! she woke from the nightmare of sleep 
to the nightmare of reality, and the week-end meant 
only time to sound the horror of the new situation. 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


269 


In one point alone, Friday remained a consolation. 
Only one day to face her fellow-teachers and her 
children, and then two days for hiding from the 
world with her pain, for preparing to face it again; 
to say nothing of the leisure for practical recupera¬ 
tion of the home. 

Lazarus turned up so late that the council of war 
was of the briefest and held almost on the door-step, 
for Salvina must be in school by nine. The thought 
of staying away — even in this crisis — simply did 
not occur to her. 

She arranged that Lazarus was to meet her in the 
city after morning school, when she would have 
drawn her savings from the post-office: more than 
enough for the advance on the furniture, which must 
be delivered that very afternoon. Lazarus had been 
for telegraphing at once to Kitty for assistance, but 
Salvina put her foot down. 

“ Let us not frighten her—I will go and break it 
to her on Sunday afternoon. You know she can’t 
spare any money; it is as much as she can do to 
dress up to the position.” 

“ I do hope the scandal won’t spread,” said Laza¬ 
rus gloomily. “ It would be a nice thing if she lost 
the position and fell back on our hands.” 

“ Yes, he has ruined all my children,” sobbed Mrs. 
Brill, breaking out afresh. “ But what did he care ? 
Ah, if it wasn’t for me, you would have been in the 
workhouse long ago.” 


270 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“ Well then, go and do your Sabbath marketing or 
else we’ll have to go there now,” said Lazarus not 
unkindly ; “ the tradespeople will give you credit.” 

“ Rather! They know I never ran away.” 

“ And mind, mother,” said Salvina as she snatched 
up her Greek grammar, “ mind the fried fish is as 
good as usual; we’re a long way from the workhouse 
yet! And if you’re not in to-night, Lazarus,” she 
whispered as she ran off, “ I’ll never forgive you.” 

“Well, I’m blowed! ” said Lazarus, looking after 
the awkward little figure, flying to catch the 8.21. 

“ Yes, but I’ve no frying pan! ” Mrs. Brill called 
after her. 

“ You’ll have it by this afternoon,” Salvina called 
back reassuringly. 

The sun was already strong, the train packed, and 
Salvina stood so jammed in that she could scarcely 
hold her grammar open, and the irregular verbs 
danced before her eyes even more than their strange 
moods and tenses warranted. At the school her 
thrilling consciousness of her domestic tragedy inter¬ 
posed some strange veil between her and her fellow- 
teachers, and they seemed to stand away from her, 
enveloped in another atmosphere. She heard her¬ 
self teaching— five elevens are fifty-five — and her 
own self seemed to stand away from her, too. She 
noted without protest two of the girls pulling each 
other’s hair in some far-off hazy world, and the an¬ 
swering drone of the class — five elevens are fifty- 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


271 


five — seemed like the peaceful buzzing of a gigantic 
blue-bottle on a drowsy afternoon. It occurred to 
her suddenly that she was fifty-five years old, and 
when Miss Rolver, the Christian head-mistress, came 
into her room, Salvina had an unexpected feeling of 
advantage in life-experience over this desiccated 
specimen of femininity, redolent of time-tables, rec¬ 
ord-parchments, foolscap, and clean blotting-paper. 
Outside all this scheduled world pulsed a large 
irregular life of flesh and blood; all the primitive 
verbs in every language were irregular, it suddenly 
flashed upon her, and she had an instant of vivifying 
insight into the Greek language she had unquestion- 
ingly accepted as “ dead ”; saw Grecian men and 
women breathing their thoughts and passions — 
even expressing the shape of their throats and lips 
— through these erratic aorists. 

“ You look tired, dear,” said the head-mistress. 

“ It’s the heat,” Salvina murmured. 

“Never mind; the summer holidays will soon be 
here.” 

It sounded a mockery. Summer holidays would 
no longer mean Ramsgate, and delicious days of 
study on sunny cliffs, with the relaxation of novels 
and poems. These slowly achieved luxuries of the 
last two years were impossible for this year at least. 
And this thought of being penned up in London dur¬ 
ing the dog days oppressed her: she felt choking. 
Her next sensation was of water sprinkling on her 


272 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


face, and of Miss Rolver’s kind anxious voice asking 
her if she felt better. Instead of replying, Salvina 
wondered in a clouded way where the school-managers 
were. 

Even her nai've mind had been struck at last by 
the coincidence that whenever, after a managers’ 
meeting, these omnipotent ladies and gentlemen from 
a higher world strolled through the school, Miss 
Rolver happened to be discovered in an interesting 
attitude. If it was the play-hour, she would be — for 
this occasion only — in the playground leading the 
games, surrounded by clamorously affectionate little 
ones. If it was working-time, she was found as a 
human island amid a sea of sewing: billows of pina¬ 
fores and aprons heaved tumultuously around her. 
Or, with a large air of angelic motherhood, she would 
be tying up some child’s bruised finger. Her great¬ 
est invention — so it had appeared to the scrupulous 
Salvina — was the stray, starved, half-frozen, sweet 
little kitten, lapping up milk from a saucer before a 
ruddy blazing fire at the very instant of the great 
personages’ passage. How they had beamed, one 
and all, at the touching sight. 

Hence it was that Salvina’s dazed vision now 
sought vaguely for the school-managers. But in 
another instant she realized that this present solici¬ 
tude was not for another but for herself, and that it 
had nothing of the theatrical. A remorseful pang of 
conscience added to her pains. She said tremulously 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


273 


that she felt better and was gently chided for over¬ 
study and admonished to go home and rest. 

“ Oh, no, I am all right now,” she responded in 
stinctively. 

“ But I’ll take your class,” Miss Rolver insisted, 
and Salvina found herself wandering outside in the 
free sunshine, with a sense of the forbidden. An 
acute consciousness of Board School classes droning 
dutifully all over London made the streets at that 
hour strange and almost sinful. She went to the. 
post-office and drew out as much of her money as 
red tape allowed, and while wandering about in 
Whitechapel waiting for the hour of her rendezvous 
with Lazarus, she had time to purchase a coarse but 
white table-cloth, a plush cover embroidered with 
“Jerusalem” in Hebrew, and a gilt goblet. These 
were for the Friday-night table. 

V 

But the Sabbath brought no peace. Though mir¬ 
acles were wrought in that afternoon, and, except 
that it was laid in the kitchen, the Sabbath table had 
all its immemorial air, with the consecration cup, the 
long plaited loaves under the “ Jerusalem,” cover, and 
the dish of fried fish that had grown to seem no less 
religious; yet there could be no glossing over the 
absence of the gross-paunched paternal figure that 
had so unctuously presided over the ceremony. His 


274 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


vacant place held all the emptiness of death, and all 
the fulness of retrospective profanation. How like 
he was to Moss M. Rosenstein, Salvina thought sud¬ 
denly. Lazarus had ignored the gilt goblet and the 
shilling bottle of claret, and was helping himself from 
the coffee-pot, when his mother cried bitterly: 
“ What! are we to eat like the animals ? ” 

“ Oh bother ! ” Lazarus exclaimed. “ You know I 
hate all these mummeries. I wouldn’t say if they 
really made people good. But you see for your¬ 
self— ” 

“ Oh, but you must say Kiddush , Lazarus,” said 
Salvina, half pleadingly, half peremptorily. She 
fetched the prayer-book and Lazarus, grumbling in¬ 
articulately, took the head of the table, and stumbled 
through the prayer, thanking God for having chosen 
and sanctified Israel above all nations, and in love and 
favour given it the holy Sabbath as an inheritance. 

But oh ! how tamely the words sounded, how void 
of that melodious devotion thrilling through the joy¬ 
ous roulades of the father. It was a sort of symbol 
of the mutilated home, and thus Salvina felt it. And 
she remembered the last ceremony at which her 
father had presided — that of the Separation when 
the Sabbath faded into work-day — the ceremony of 
Division between the Holy and the Profane, and 
she shivered to think it had indeed marked for the 
unhappy man the line of demarcation. 

“ Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, who hallowest 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


275 


the Sabbath,” Lazarus was mumbling, and in another 
instant he was awkwardly distributing the ritual 
morsels of bread. 

But the mother could not swallow hers, for indig¬ 
nant imaginings of the rival Sabbath board. “ May 
her morsel choke her!” she cried, and nearly was 
choked by her own. 

“ Oh, mother, do not mention her — neither her nor 
him. — Never any more” said Salvina. And again 
the new note of peremptoriness rang in her voice, 
and her mother stopped suddenly short like a scolded 
child. 

“ Will you have plaice or sole, mother ? ” Salvina 
went on, her voice changing to a caress. 

“ I can’t eat, Salvina. Don’t ask me.” 

“ But you must eat.” And Salvina calmly helped 
her to fish and to coffee and put in the lumps of 
sugar; and the mother ate and drank with equal calm, 
as if hypnotized. 

All through the meal Salvina’s mind kept swinging 
betwixt the past and the future. Strange odds and 
ends of scenes came up in which her father figured, 
and her old and new conceptions of him interplayed 
bewilderingly. Her sudden vision of him as Moss 
M. Rosenstein persisted, and could only be laid by 
concentrating her thoughts on the early days when 
he used to take herself and Kitty to Victoria Park, 
carrying her in his arms when she was tired. But it 
made her cry to see that little tired happy figure 


276 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


cuddling the trusted giant, and she had to jump for 
refuge into the future. 

They must move back to Hounsditch. She must 
give up the idea of becoming a “ Bachelor ” : the 
hours of evening study must now be devoted to teach¬ 
ing others. Her University distinction was already 
great enough to give her an unusual chance of pupils, 
while her “ Yiddish,” sucked in with her mother’s 
milk, had become exceptionally good German under 
study. She might hope for as much as two shillings 
an hour and thus earn a whole sovereign extra per 
week. 

And over this poor helpless blighted mother, she 
would watch as over a child. All the maternal in¬ 
stinct in her awoke under the stress of this curiously 
inverted position. Her remorseful memory sum¬ 
moned a penitential procession of bygone petulances. 
Never again would she be cross or hasty with this ill- 
starred heroine. Yes, her mother was become a fig¬ 
ure of romance to her, as well as a nursling. This 
woman, whose prosaic humours she had so often fret¬ 
ted under, was in truth a woman who had lived and 
loved. She had ceased to be a mere mother ; a large 
being who presided over one’s childhood. And this 
imaginative insight, she noted with surprise, would 
never have been hers but for her father’s desertion: 
like one who realizes the virtues of a corpse, she had 
waited till love was slain to perceive its fragrance. 

A postman’s knock, as the meal was finished, made 



THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


277 


her heart give a corresponding pit-a-pat, and she 
turned quite faint. All her nerves seemed to be on 
the rack, expecting new sensational developments. 
The letter was for Lazarus. 

“ Ah, you abomination ! ” cried his mother, as he 
tore open the envelope. He did not pause to defend 
his Sabbath breaking, but cried joyfully: “ What did 
I tell you ? Granders Brothers offer me travelling 
expenses and a commission! ” 

“ Oh, thank God, thank God! ” ejaculated his 
mother, her eyes raised piously. He took up his hat. 
“ Where are you going ? ” said Mrs. Brill. 

“To see Rhoda of course. Don’t you think she’s 
as anxious about it as you ? ” 

Salvina’s eyes were full of sympathetic tears: 
“ Yes, yes, let him go, mother.” 

VI 

On the Sunday afternoon, feeling much better for 
the Saturday rest, and scrupulously gloved, shod, 
and robed in deference to the grandeur of her des¬ 
tination, Salvina boarded an omnibus, and after a 
tedious journey, involving a walk at the end, she 
arrived at the West End square in which her sister 
bloomed as governess and companion in a newly 
enriched Jewish family. She stood an instant in 
the porch to compose herself for the tragic task 
before her and felt in her pocket to be sure she had 


278 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


not lost the little bottle of smelling-salts with which 
she had considerately armed herself, in anticipation 
of a failure of Kitty’s nerves. Then she knocked 
timidly at the door, which was opened by a speck¬ 
less boy in buttons, who also opened up to her 
imagination endless vistas of aristocratic association. 
His impressive formality, as of the priest of a shrine, 
seemed untinged by any remembrance that on her 
one previous visit she had been made free of the 
holy of holies. But perhaps it was not the same 
boy. He was indeed less a boy to her than a row 
of buttons, and less a row of buttons than a symbol 
of all the elegances and opulences in which Kitty 
moved as to the manner born; the elaborate ritual 
of the toilette, the sacramental shaving of poodles, 
the mysterious panoramic dinners in which one had 
to be constantly aware of the appropriate fork. 

Salvina had not waited a minute in the imposing 
hall, ere a radiant belle flew down the stairs — with 
a vivacity that troubled the sacro-sanct atmosphere 
— and caught Salvina in her arms. 

“Oh, you dear Sally! I am so glad to see you,” 
and a fusillade of kisses accompanied the hug. 
“ Whatever brings you here ? Oh, and such a dowdy 
frock! You needn’t flush up so, silly little child; 
nobody expects you to know how to dress like us 
ignoramuses, and it doesn’t matter to-day, there’s no 
one to see you, for they’re all out driving, and I’m 
lying down with a headache.” 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


279 


“ Poor Kitty. But then you ought to be out driv¬ 
ing.” She was divided between sympathy for the 
sufferer, and admiration of the finished, fine lady¬ 
hood implied in indifference to the chance of a 
carriage-drive. 

“Yes, but Fve so many letters to write, and they 
don’t really drive on Sundays, just stop at house 
after house, and not good houses either. It is such 
a bore. They’ve never shaken off the society they 
had before they made their money.” 

“ Well, but that’s rather nice of them.” 

“ Perhaps, but not nice for me. But come up¬ 
stairs and you shall have some tea.” 

Salvina mounted the broad staircase with a rever¬ 
ence attuned to her own hushed footfalls, but her 
task of breaking the news to her sister weighed the 
heavier upon her for all this subdued magnificence. 
It seemed almost profane to bring the squalid epi¬ 
sodes of Hackney into this atmosphere, appropriate 
indeed to the sinful romances of marquises and 
epauletted officers, but wholly out of accord with 
surreptitious furniture vans. What a blow to poor 
Kitty the news would be! She dallied weakly, till 
the tea was brought by a powdered footman. Then 
she had an ingenious idea for a little shock to lead 
up to a greater. She would say they were going 
to move. But as she took off her white glove not 
to sully it with the tea and cake, Kitty cried: “ Why 
what have you done with my ring ? ” 


280 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


Here was an excellent natural opening, but Sal- 
vina was taken too much aback to avail herself of it, 
especially as the artificial opening preoccupied her 
mind. “ Oh, your ring’s all right,” she said hastily ; 
“ I came to tell you we are going to move.” 

Kitty clapped her hands. “ Ah ! so you’ve taken 
my advice at last! I’m so glad. It wasn’t nice for 
me to stay with you at that dingy hole, even for a 
day or two a year. Mustn’t mother be pleased! ” 

Salvina bit her lip. Her task was now heavier 
than ever. 

“ No, mother isn’t pleased. She is crying about 
it.” 

“Crying? Disgusting. How she still hankers 
after Spitalfields and the Lane ! ” 

“ She isn’t crying for that, but because father 
won’t go with us.” 

“ Oh, I have no patience with father. He hasn’t 
a soul above red herrings and potatoes.” 

“ Oh, yes he has. He has left us.” 

“ What! Left you ? ” Kitty’s pretty eyes opened 
wide. “ Because he won’t move to a better house ! ” 

“ No, we are moving to a worse house because he 
has moved to a better.” 

“What are you talking about? Is it a joke ? A 
riddle? I give it up.” 

“Father — can’t you guess, Kitty?—father has 
gone away. There is some other woman.” 

“No?” gasped Kitty. “Ha! ha! ha! ha!” 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


281 


and she shook with long peals of silvery laughter. 
“ Well, of all the funny things ! Ha ! ha! ha ! ” 

“ Funny! ” and Salvina looked at her sternly. 

“What, don’t you see the humour of it? Father 
turning into the hero of a novelette. Romance and 
red herrings! Passion and potatoes! Ha! ha! 
ha!” 

“If you had seen the havoc it wrought, you 
wouldn’t have had the heart to laugh.” 

“ Oh well, mother was crying. That I understand. 
But that’s nothing new for her. She’d cry just as 
much if he were there. The average rainfall is — 
how many inches ? ” 

Salvina’s face was stern and white. “A mother’s 
tears are sacred,” she said in low but firm protest. 

“ Oh, dear me, Sally, I always forget you have no 
sense of humour. Well, what are you going to do 
about it ? ” and her own sense of humour continued to 
twitch and dimple the corners of her pretty mouth. 

“ I told you. We cannot afford to keep up the 
house — we must go back to apartments in Spital- 
fields.” 

Instantly Kitty’s face grew as serious as Salvina’s. 
“ Oh, nonsense ! ” she said instinctively. The thought 
of her family returning to the discarded shell of apart¬ 
ments was humiliating; her own personality seemed 
being dragged back. 

“ We can’t pay the rent. We must give a quarter’s 
notice at once.” 


282 


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“Absurd! You’ll only save a few shillings a 
week. Why can’t you let apartments yourselves ? 
At least you would preserve a decent appearance.” 

“ Is it worth while having the responsibility of the 
rent ? There’s only mother and I — we shan’t need 
a house.” 

“ But there’s Lazarus ! ” 

“ He’ll have a place of his own. He’ll marry be¬ 
fore our notice expires.” 

“ That same Jonas girl ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ Ridiculous. Small tradespeople, and dreadfully 
common, all the lot. I thought he’d got over his 
passion for that bold black creature who’s been seen 
licking ice-cream out of a street-glass. To connect 
us with that family! Men are so selfish. But I still 
don’t see why you can’t remain as you are — let your 
drawing-room, say, furnished.” 

“ But it isn’t furnished.” 

“Not furnished. Why, I’ve sat on the couch my¬ 
self.” 

“Yes,” said Salvina, a faint smile tempering her 
deadly gravity. “You are the only person who has 
ever done that. But there’s no couch now. Father 
smuggled all the furniture away in a van.” 

Again Kitty’s silver laughter rang out unquench- 
ably. 

“And you don’t call that funny! Eloped with the 
chairs ! I call it killing.” 


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283 


“Yes, for mother,” said Salvina. 

“ Pooh ! She’ll outlive all of us. I wish you were 
as sure of getting the furniture back. She’s not a 
bad mother, as mothers go, but you take her too 
seriously.” 

“ But, Kitty, consider the disgrace ! ” 

“ The disgrace of having a wicked parent! I’ve 
endured for years the disgrace of having a poor one 
— and that’s worse. My people—the Samuelsons, 
I mean — will never even hear of the pater’s esca¬ 
pade — gossip keeps strictly to its station. And even 
if they do, they know already my family’s under a 
cloud, and they have learned to accept me for my¬ 
self.” 

“ Well, I am glad you don’t mind,” said Salvina, 
half-relieved, half-shocked. 

“ I mind, if it makes you uncomfortable, you dear, 
silly Sally.” 

“ Oh, don’t worry about me. I think I’ll go back 
to mother, now.” 

“ Nonsense, why, we haven’t begun to talk yet. 
Have another cup of tea. No? How’s old Miss 
What’s-a-name, your head-mistress ? Any more 
frozen little kittens ? ” 

“She’s very kind, really. I’m sorry I told you 
about the kitten. She let me go home early on 
Friday.” 

“ Why ? To track the van ? ” 

“No; I wasn’t very well.” 


284 


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“Poor Sally !” and Kitty hugged her again. “I 
daresay you were more upset than mother.” 

Tears came into Salvina’s eyes at her sister’s affec¬ 
tionateness. “ Oh, no; but please don’t talk about 
it any more. Father is dead to us now.” 

“Then we must speak well of him.” 

Salvina shuddered. “He is a wicked, heartless 
man, and mother and I never wish to see his face 
again.” 

A cloud darkened Kitty’s blonde brow. 

“ Yes, but she isn’t going to marry another man, I 
hope.” 

“ How can she ? ” said Salvina. “ I wouldn’t let 
her make any public scandal.” 

“But aren’t there funny laws in our religion — 
Get and things like that — which dispense with the 
English courts.” 

“I believe there are — I read about something of 
the kind in a novel — oh, yes! and father did offer 
mother Get before he went off, so I suppose he 
considers his conscience clear.” 

“Well, I rely upon you, Sally, to see that she 
doesn’t marry or complicate things more. We don’t 
want two wicked parents.” 

“ Of course not. But I am sure she doesn’t dream 
of any new complications. You don’t do her justice, 
Kitty. She’s just broken-hearted; a perpetual 
widow, with worse than her husband’s death to 
lament.” 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


285 


“Yes — her lost furniture.” 

“Oh, Kitty, do realize what it means.” 

“ I do, my dear. I do realize it — it’s too killing. 
Passion in a Pantechnicon or Elopements economi¬ 
cally conducted. By the day or hour. Oh, dear, oh, 
dear! But do promise me, Salvina, that you won’t 
go back to Spitalfields.” 

“ I must be somewhere near the school, dearest. 
It will save train-fares.” 

Kitty pouted. “ Well, you know I couldn’t drive 
up to see you any more; Hackney was all but outside 
the radius—the radius of respectability. I couldn’t 
ask coachman to go to Spitalfields — unless I pre¬ 
tended to be slumming.” 

“Well, pretend.” 

“ Oh, Salvina! I thought you were so conscien¬ 
tious. No, I’ll have to come in a cab. You’re quite 
sure you won’t have some more tea ? Oh, do, I 
insist. One piece of sugar ? ” 

“Yes, thank you, dear. By the way, has Sugar- 
man the Shadchan been here ? ” 

“ You mean — has he gone ? ” 

“ Oh, poor Kitty ! It was my fault. I let him 
know your address. I do hope the horrid man 
hasn’t worried you.” 

“ Sugarman ? ” 

“No — Moss M. Rosenstein.” 

“ How pat you have his name! But why do you 
call him horrid ? ” 


280 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


Salvina stared. “ But have you seen his photo¬ 
graph ? ” 

“ Oh, you can’t go by photographs. He has been 
here.” 

“ What! Sugarman had the impudence to bring 
him! ” 

Kitty flushed slightly. “No, he called alone — 
this afternoon, just before you.” 

“What impertinence! A brazen commercial court¬ 
ship ! You wouldn’t receive him, of course.” 

“Oh, well, I thought it would be fun just to look 
at him,” said Kitty uneasily. “A commercial court¬ 
ship, as you express it, is not unamusing.” 

“ I don’t see anything amusing in it — it’s an out¬ 
rage.” 

“ I told you you had no sense of humour. I find 
it comic to be loved before first sight by a man who 
has no //’s, but only /’s, s’ s, and cT s.” 

“ Sugarman says he did see you before loving you 
— noticed you before he went to the Cape. But you 
must have been a little girl then.” 

“He didn’t tell me that — that would have been 
even more romantic. He only said he fell in love 
with my photograph, as paraded by Sugarman.” 

“Why, where should Sugarman get — ” 

“You never know what mother’s been up to,” 
interrupted Kitty dryly. 

“ Much more likely father.” 

“ What’s the odds ? Do have another piece of 
cake.” 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


287 


“No, thank you. But what did you say to the 
man ? ” 

“The same as you. Don’t stare so, you stupid 
dear. I said, No, thank you.” 

“That I knew. Of course you couldn’t possibly 
marry a bloated creature from the Cape. I meant, 
in what terms did you put him in his place? ” 

“ Oh, really,” said Kitty, laughing, but without her 
recent merriment. “ This is too prejudiced. I 
can’t admit that mere residence in the Cape is a 
disqualification.” 

“ Oh, yes, it is. Why do they go there ? Only to 
make money. A person whose one idea in life is 
money can’t be a nice person.” 

“ But money isn’t his one idea — now his one idea 
is matrimony. That is a joke. You ought to laugh.” 

“ It makes me cry to think that some nice girl 
may be driven into marrying him just for his 
money.” 

“ Poor man! So because of his money he is to 
be prevented from having a nice wife.” 

Salvina was taken aback by this obverse view. 

“ How is he ever to improve ? ” asked Kitty, pur¬ 
suing her advantage. 

“Yes, that’s true,” Salvina admitted. “The best 
thing would be if some nice girl could fall in love 
with him. But that doesn’t make his methods less 
insulting. I wish all these Shadchans could be 
slaughtered off.” 


288 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“ What a savage little chit! They often make as 
good marriages as are made in heaven.” 

“Don’t tease. You know you think as I do.” 

Salvina took an affectionate leave of her sister, 
and walked down the soft staircase, confused but 
cheerful. The boy in buttons let her out. To do 
so he hurriedly put down the infant of the house 
who was riding on his shoulders. Such a touch of 
humanity in a row of buttons gave Salvina a new 
insight and a suspicion that even the powdered foot¬ 
man who brought the tea might have an emotion 
behind his gorgeous waistcoat. But the crowds 
fighting for the omnibuses that fine Sunday after¬ 
noon depressed her again. All the seats outside 
were packed, and it was only after standing a long 
time on the pavement that she squeezed her way 
into an inside seat. The stuffiness and jolting made 
her feel sick and dizzy. By a happy accident her 
fingers encountered the bottle of smelling-salts in her 
pocket, and, as she pulled it out eagerly, she re¬ 
membered it had been intended for Kitty. 

VII 

Lazarus remained out late that evening, and, as 
he had forgotten to borrow the key, Salvina was 
sitting up for him. 

She utilized the time in preparing her sewing. 
She was making a night-dress with dozens and dozens 



THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


289 


of tiny tucks at the breast, all run by hand, and she 
was putting into the fine calico an artistic needlework 
absolutely futile, and with its perpetual “ count two, 
miss two,” — infinitely trying to the eyes, especially 
by gas-light. The insane competition of ■ he teachers, 
refining upon a Code in itself stupidly exacting, made 
the needlework the most distressing of all the tasks 
of the girl-teachers of that day. Salvina herself, 
with her morbid conscientiousness and desire to 
excel, underwent nightmares from the vexatiousness 
of learning how to cut holes so that they could not 
possibly be darned, and then darning them. When, 
at the head-centre, the lady demonstrator, armed 
with a Brobdingnagian whalebone needle, threaded 
with a bright red cord, executed herringboned fan¬ 
tasias on a canvas frame resembling a violin stand, 
it all looked easy enough. But when Salvina her¬ 
self had to unravel a little piece of stockinette with 
a real needle and then fill in the hole so as to leave 
no trace of the crime, she was reduced to hysteria. 
Even the coloured threads with which she worked 
were a scant relief to the eye. And all this elabor¬ 
ate fancywork was entirely useless. At home Sal¬ 
vina was always at work, darning and mending; 
never was there a defter needle. Even the “ hedge- 
tear-down ” was neatly and expeditiously repaired, so 
long as she avoided the scholastic methods. “ What’s 
all this madness ? ” her mother had asked once, when 
she had tried the orthodox “Swiss darning” on a 


200 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


real article. And Mrs. Brill surveyed in amazement 
the back of the darn, which looked like Turkish 
towelling. 

To-night Salvina could not long continue her tax¬ 
ing work. Her eyes ached, and she at last resolved 
to rise early in the morning and proceed with the 
night-dress then. She turned the gas low, so as to 
reduce the bill, and it was as if she had turned down 
her own spirits, for a strange melancholy now took 
possession of her in the silent fuscous kitchen in the 
denuded house, and the emptiness of the other rooms 
seemed to strike a chill upon her senses. There 
were strange creaks and ghostly noises from all 
parts. She fixed her thought on the one furnished 
bed-room now occupied by her mother, as on a sym¬ 
bol of life and recuperation. But the uncanny noises 
went on; rustlings, and patterings, and Salvina felt 
that she might shriek and frighten her mother. She 
had almost resolved to turn up the gas, when the 
sound of a harmonium came muffled through the 
wall, and the softened voices of her Christian neigh¬ 
bours sang a Sunday hymn. Salvina ceased to be 
alone; and tears bathed her cheeks, as the crude 
melody lilted on. She felt absorbed in some great 
light and love, which was somehow both a present 
possession and a beckoning future that awaited her 
soul, and it was all mysteriously mixed with the blue 
skies of Victoria Park, in those far-off happy days 
when she had gone home on her father’s shoulder; 


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291 


and with the blue skies of those enchanted sunlit 
lands of art and beauty, in which she would wander 
in the glorious future, when she should be making a 
hundred and fifty a year. Paris, Venice, Athens, 
Madrid — how the mellifluous syllables thrilled her ! 
One by one, in her annual summer holiday, she and 
her mother might see them all. Meantime she saw 
them all in her imagination, bathed in the light that 
never was on sea or land, and it was not her mother 
with whom she journeyed but a noble young Bayard, 
handsome and tender-hearted, who had impercepti¬ 
bly slipped into her mother’s place. Poor Salvina, 
with all her modesty, never saw herself as others saw 
her, never lost the dream of a romantic love. Laza¬ 
rus’s rat-tat recalled her to reality. 

“I know I’m late,” he said, with apologetic defi¬ 
ance, “ but it’s no pleasure to sit in an empty house. 
You may like it, but your tastes were always peculiar, 
and that straw mattress on the floor isn’t inviting.” 

“ I am so sorry, dear. But then mother must have 
the bed.” 

“Well, it won’t last long, thank Heaven. I made 
the Jonases consent to the marriage before the scan¬ 
dal gets to them.” 

“ So soon ! ” said Salvina with unconscious social 
satire. 

“ Yes, and we’ll have our honeymoon travelling 
for Granders Brothers. She’s a good sort, is Rhoda, 
she doesn’t mind gypsying. And that saves us from 


292 


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the expense of completing the furniture.” He 
paused, and added awkwardly, “ I’d lend it to you, 
only that might give us away.” 

“ But we don’t need the furniture, dear, and don’t 
you think they ought to know — it is the rest of the 
world that it doesn't concern.” 

“They are bound to know after the marriage. 
We’ve kept it dark so far, thanks to being in Hack¬ 
ney away from our old acquaintances and to mother’s 
stinginess in not having encouraged new people to 
drop in. I’ve told the Jonases father was ill and 
might have to go away for his health. That’ll pave 
the way to his absence from the wedding. It sounds 
quite grand. We’ll send him to a German Spa.” 

Salvina did not share her brother’s respect for old 
Jonas, who bored her with trite quotations from Eng¬ 
lish literature or the Hebrew Bible. He was in sooth 
a pompous ignoramus, acutely conscious of being an 
intellectual light in an ignorant society; a green 
shade he wore over his left eye added to his air of 
dignified distinction. Foreign Jews in especial were 
his scorn, and he seriously imagined that his own 
stereotyped phrases uttered with a good English pro¬ 
nunciation gave his conversation an immeasurable 
superiority over the most original thinking tainted by 
a German or Yiddish accent. Salvina’s timid correc¬ 
tions of his English quotations made him angry and 
imperilled Lazarus’s wooing. The young man was 
indeed the only member of the family who cultivated 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


293 


relations with the Jonases, though now it would be 
necessary to exchange perfunctory visits. Lazarus 
presided over these visits in fear and trembling, 
glossing over any slips as to the father, who was 
gone to the seaside for his health. On second 
thoughts, Lazarus had not ventured on a German 
Spa. 

VIII 

Ere the wedding-day arrived, Salvina had to go to 
the seaside. Clacton-on-Sea was the somewhat ple¬ 
beian place and the school-fete the occasion. Salvina 
looked forward to it without much personal pleasure, 
because of the responsibilities involved, but it was a 
break in the pupil-teacher’s monotonous round of 
teaching at the school and being taught at the 
Centres; and in the actual expedition the children’s 
joy was contagious and made Salvina shed secret 
tears of sympathy. Arrived at the beach of the 
stony, treeless, popular watering-place, most of the 
happy little girls were instantly paddling in the surf 
with yells of delight, while the tamer sort dug 
sand-pits and erected castles. Salvina, whose office 
on this occasion was to assist an “ assistant teacher,” 
had to keep her eye on a particular contingent. She 
sat down on the noisy sunlit sands with her back to 
the sea-wall so as to sweep the field of vision. Her 
nervous conscientiousness made her count her sheep 
at frequent intervals, and be worried over missing 


294 


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now this one, now that one. How her heart beat 
furiously and then almost stopped, when she saw a 
child wading out too far. No, decidedly it was a 
trying form of pleasure for the teacher. One bright 
little girl who had never beheld the sea before picked 
up a wonderfully smooth white pebble, and bringing 
it to Salvina asked if it was worth any money. 
Salvina held it up, extemporizing an object lesson for 
the benefit of the little bystanders. 

“No,” she said, “ this is not worth any money, be¬ 
cause you can get plenty of them without trouble, 
and even beautiful things are not considered valuable 
if anybody can have them. This stone was polished 
without charge by the action of the waves washing 
against it for millions and millions of years, and if 
it—” 

The sudden blare of a brass band on the other side 
of the sea-wall made her turn her head, and there, 
in a brand-new room of a brand-new house on the 
glaring Promenade, a room radiating blatant pros¬ 
perity from its stony balcony, she perceived her 
father, in holiday attire, and by his side a woman, 
buxom and yellow-haired. A hot wave of blood 
seemed to flood Salvina up to the eyes. So there 
he was luxuriating in the sun, rich and careless. All 
her homely instincts of work and duty rose in burn¬ 
ing contempt. And poor Mrs. Brill had to remain 
cooped at home, drudging and wailing. For a second 
she felt she would like to throw the stone at him, but 


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295 


her next feeling was pain lest the sight of her should 
painfully embarrass him ; and turning her face swiftly 
seawards she went on, with scarce a pause percepti¬ 
ble to the little girls, “ If it gets worn away some 
more millions of years, it will be ground down to 
sand, like all the other stones that were once here,” 
and as she spoke, she began to realize her own words, 
and a tragic sense of her own insignificance in this 
eternal wash of space and time seemed to reduce her 
to a grain of sand, and blow her about the great 
spaces. But the mood passed away before a fresh 
upwelling of concrete resentment against the self- 
pampered pair at the Promenade window. Never¬ 
theless, her feeling of how their seeming satisfaction 
would be upset at the sight of her, made her carefully 
minimize the contingency, and the dread of it hovered 
over the day, adding to the worries over the children. 
But she vowed that her mother should be revenged; 
she, too, poor wronged one, should wallow in Prome¬ 
nade luxury in her future holidays; no more should 
she be housed in back streets without sea-views. 

At night, after, Mrs. Brill was in bed, Salvina could 
not resist saying to Lazarus, whose supper she had 
been keeping hot for him : “ How strange ! Father 
is at the seaside.” 

“The dickens!” He paused, fork in hand. 
“You saw him at Clacton-on-Sea?” 

“ Yes, but don’t tell mother. So we didn’t tell a 
lie after all. I’m so glad.” 


296 


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“Oh, go to blazes, you and your conscience. 
Where was he staying?” 

“ In a house in the very centre of the Promenade; 
it’s simply shocking ! ” 

“ Make me some fresh mustard, and don’t moralize. 
Did you have a good time ? ” 

“Not very; a little cripple-girl in my class went 
paddling, and joking, and dropped her crutch, and 
it floated away — ” 

“ Bother your little cripple-girls. They always 
seem to be in your class! ” 

“ Because my class is on the ground floor.” 

“Ha! ha! ha! Just your luck. By the way,” 
he became grave, “look what a beastly letter from 
Kitty! Not coming to the wedding. I call it 
awfully selfish of her.” 

Kitty wrote her deep regrets, but her people had 
suddenly determined to go abroad and she could not 
lose this chance of seeing the world; “ the gov¬ 
erness’s honeymoon,” she christened it. Paris, 
Switzerland, Rome,—all the magic places were to 
be hers, — and Salvina, reading the letter, gasped 
with sympathy and longing. 

But the happy traveller was represented at the 
wedding by a large bronze-looking knight on horse¬ 
back, which towered in shining green over the in¬ 
significant gifts of the Jonas’s circle; the utilitarian 
salad-bowls, and fish-slices, and dessert sets. One 
other present stood out luridly, but only to Salvina. 


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297 


It was a glossy arm-chair, and on the seat lay a 
card : “ From Rhoda’s loving father-in-law.” When 
Salvina first saw this — at a family card-party, the 
Sunday evening before the wedding — she started 
and flushed so furiously that Lazarus had to give her 
a warning nudge, and to whisper “ Only for appear¬ 
ance.” At the supper-table old Jonas, who carved 
and jested with much appreciation of his own skill in 
both departments, referred facetiously to the absent 
father, who might, nevertheless, be said to be “ in the 
chair” on that occasion. 

Salvina dressed her mother as carefully for the 
ceremony as though Kitty’s fears were being real¬ 
ized and Mrs. Brill was the bride of the occasion; 
and so debonair a figure emerged from the ordeal, 
that you could recognize Kitty’s mother instead of 
Salvina’s. Lazarus had spent his farewell evening 
of bachelorhood at an hotel, justly complaining 
that a mirrorless bed-room with a straw mattress 
was no place for a bridegroom to issue from. 
Never had bridegroom been so ill-treated, he grum¬ 
bled; and he shook his fist imaginatively at the 
father who had despoiled him. 

But he joined his mother and sister in the cab; 
and as it approached the synagogue, he said sud¬ 
denly: “Don’t be shocked — but I rather expect 
father will be at the Shool (synagogue).” 

“ What! ” and Mrs. Brill appeared like to faint. 

“He wouldn’t have the cheek,” Salvina said 


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reassuringly, as she pulled out the smelling-salts 
which Kitty had not needed. 

‘‘He wouldn’t have the cheek not to come,” 
said Lazarus. “ I asked him.” 

“ You ! ” They glared at him in horror. 

“Yes; I wasn’t going to have things look funny 

— I hate explanations. The Jonases thought there 
was something queer the other night, when you 
both bungled the explanation of the rheumatism, 
spite all my coaching.” 

“ But where did you find him ? ” said the mother 
excitedly. 

“ At Clacton-on-Sea.” 

Salvina bit her lip. 

“ I sent in my card, — ‘ Laurence Beryl, of Gran- 
ders Brothers.’ When he saw me, I thought he 
would have had a fit. I told him if he didn’t 
come up to the wedding and play heavy father, 
I’d summons him — ” 

“ Summons him ! ” echoed Mrs. Brill. 

“ For stealing my old arm-chair. I remembered 

— ha! ha! ha! — it was I that had bought the 
easy-chair for myself, when we lived in Spitalfields 
and had only wooden chairs.” 

“ So he did send that easy-chair ! ” said Salvina. 

“Yes; that was rather clever of him. And don’t 
you think it’s clever of me to save appearances ? ” 

“ It’ll be terrible for mother ! ” said Salvina hotly. 
“ Didn’t you think of that ? ” 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


290 


“ She won’t have to-talk to him. He’ll only hang 
round. Nobody will notice.” 

“ It would have been better to tell the truth,” 
cried Salvina, “or even a lie. This is only acting 
a lie. And it must be as painful for him as for us.” 

“ Serve him right — the old furniture-sneak ! ” 

“ It was a mistake,” Salvina persisted. 

“ Hush, hush, Salvina ! ” said Mrs. Brill. “ Don’t 
disturb your brother’s festival.” 

“ He has disturbed it himself,” said Salvina, burst¬ 
ing into tears. “ I wish, mother, we had not come.” 

“ Here, here! This is a pretty wedding,” said 
Lazarus. 

“ Hush, Salvina, hush ! ” said Mrs. Brill. “ What 
does it matter to us if a dog creeps into syna- 
gogue ? ” 

At this point the cab stopped. 

“ We’re not there ! ” cried Mrs. Brill. 

“No,” Lazarus explained; “but we pick up father 
here. We must appear to arrive together.” 

Ere the horrified pair could protest, he opened 
the door, sprang out, and pushed inside a stout, 
rubicund man with a festal rose in his holiday 
coat, but a miserable, shamefaced look in his eyes. 
Lazarus took his seat ere a word could be spoken. 
The cab rolled on. 

“Good-morning, Esther,” he muttered. “I of¬ 
fered you Get.” 

“ Silence! ” cried Salvina, as if she had been 


300 


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talking to the little girls. “ How dare you speak 
to her? ” She held her mother’s hand and felt the 
pulse beating madly. 

“ You old serpent — ” began Mrs. Brill hotly. 

“Mother!” pleaded Salvina; “not a word; he 
doesn’t deserve it.” 

“In Jerusalem I could have two wives,” he mut¬ 
tered. But no one replied. 

The four human beings sat in painful silence, 
their knees touching. The culprit shot uneasy, 
surreptitious glances at his wife, so radiant in jewels 
and finery and with so Kitty-like a complexion. It 
was as if he saw her freshly, or as if he were 
shocked — even startled — by her retaining so much 
joy of life despite his desertion of her. Fortunately 
the strange drive only lasted a few minutes. The 
bridegroom’s wedding-party passed into the syna¬ 
gogue through an avenue of sympathetic observers. 

Mr. Brill had no part to plav in the ceremony. 
The honours were carried off by Mr. Jonas, who 
stalked in slowly, with the bride on his arm, and a 
new green shade over his left eye. The rival father 
hovered meekly on the outskirts of the marriage- 
canopy amid a crowd of Jonases. Salvina stationed 
herself and her mother on the opposite border of the 
canopy, and throughout bristled, apprehensive, pro¬ 
hibitive, fiery, like a spaniel guarding its mistress 
against a bull-dog on the pounce. The bull-dog in¬ 
deed was docile enough; avoiding the spaniel’s eye, 


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301 


and trailing a spiritless tail. But the creature revived 
at the great wedding-feast in the hall of a hundred 
covers, and under the congratulations and the conviv¬ 
ial influences tended to forget he was in disgrace. 
The bridegroom’s parents were placed together, but 
Salvina changed seats with her mother, and became 
a buffer between the twain, a non-conducting medium 
through which the father could not communicate with 
the mother. With the latter she herself maintained 
a continuous conversation, and Mr. Brill soon found 
it more pleasant to forget his troubles in the charms 
of Mrs. Jonas, his other neighbour. 

After the almond-pudding, a succession of speakers 
ranging from relatives to old friends, and even the 
officiating minister, gave certificates of character to 
the bride and the bridegroom, amid the tears of the 
ladies. Father Jonas made an elaborate speech be¬ 
ginning, “Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking,” 
and interlarded with Hebrew quotations. Father 
Brill expressed the pleasure it gave him to acknow¬ 
ledge on behalf of himself and his dear wife, the kind 
things which had been said, and the delight they felt 
in seeing their son settled in the paths of domestic 
happiness, especially in connection with a scion of the 
house of Jonas, of whose virtues much had been said 
so deservedly that night. Lazarus declared, amid 
roars of laughter, that on this occasion only he would 
respond for his dear wife, but he felt sure that for the 
rest of their lives she would have the last word. Then 


302 


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the tables were cleared away and dancing began, which 
grew livelier as the dawn grew nearer. But long be¬ 
fore that, Salvina had borne her mother away from 
the hovering bull-dog. Not, however, without a ter¬ 
rible scene in the homeward cab. All the volcanic 
flames Salvina and etiquette had suppressed during 
the day shot forth luridly. Burning lava was hurled 
against her husband, against her son, against Salvina. 
An impassioned inventory of the lost furniture fol¬ 
lowed, and the refrain of the whole was that she had 
been taken to a wedding, when all she wanted was a 
funeral. 


IX 

Salvina did not count this break-down against her 
mother. It was the natural revolt of nerves tried 
beyond endurance by Lazarus’s trick. The whole 
episode intensified her sense of the romantic situation 
of her mother, and of the noble courage and dignity 
with which she confronted it. She wondered whether 
she herself would have emerged so stanchly from 
the ordeal of meeting a loved but faithless one, and 
her protective pity was tempered by a new admira¬ 
tion. Her admiration increased, when, as the secret 
gradually leaked out, her mother maintained an atti¬ 
tude of defiance against the world’s sympathy, re¬ 
fused to hear stigmatizations of her husband, even 
from old Jonas, reserving the privilege of denunciation 
for her own mouth and Salvina’s ear. 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


303 


And now began the new life of mother and daugh¬ 
ter. With Kitty on the Continent, Lazarus married, 
and the father blotted out, they had only each other. 
They moved back to the skirts of the Ghetto, and 
Mrs. Brill resumed with secret joy her old place 
among her old cronies. Inwardly, she had fretted at 
the loss of them, for which the dignity of Hackney 
had been but a shadowy compensation. But to Sal- 
vina she only expressed her outraged pride, the 
humiliation of it all, and the poor girl, unconscious of 
how happy her mother really was among the Ghetto 
gossips, tortured her brain during school-hours with 
the thought of her mother’s lonely misery. And even 
if Salvina had not been compelled to give private les¬ 
sons in the evenings to supplement their income, 
she would in any case have relinquished her Bache¬ 
lorhood aspirations in order to give her time to her 
mother. For Mrs. Brill had no resources within her¬ 
self, so far as Salvina knew. Even the great artificial 
universe of books and newspapers was closed to her. 
Salvina resolved to overcome her obstinate reluctance 
to learn to read, as soon as the pressure of the other 
private lessons relaxed. Meantime, she lived for her 
mother and her mother on her. 

Oh, the bitterness of those private lessons after the 
fag of the day; the toiling to distant places on tired 
feet; the grinding bargains imposed by the well-to- 
do! 

One of these fiends was a beautiful lady, haughty, 


304 


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with fair complexion and frosted hair, and somehow 
suggested to Salvina a steel engraving. She arranged 
graciously that Salvina should teach her little girl 
conversational German at half-a-crown an hour, but 
when Salvina started on the first lesson in the luxuri¬ 
ous sanctum, she found two sweetly dressed sisters; 
who, she was informed, could not bear to be sepa¬ 
rated, and might therefore be considered one. The 
steel engraving herself sat there, as if to superintend, 
occasionally asking for the elucidation- of a point. At 
the second lesson there were two other little girls, 
neighbours, the lady informed her, who had thought 
it would be a good opportunity for them to learn, 
too. Salvina expressed her pleasure and her grati¬ 
tude to her patroness. At the third lesson the aunt 
of the two little girls was also present with a suspi¬ 
cious air of discipleship. When at end of the month, 
Salvina presented her bill at five shillings an hour, 
the patroness flew into a towering rage. What did it 
matter to her how many children partook of the 
hour ? An hour was an hour and a bargain a bargain. 
Salvina had not the courage or the capital to resist. 
And this life of ever teaching and never learning 
went on, week after week, year after year. For when 
her salary at the school increased, the additional 
burden of Lazarus and his. wife and children fell 
upon her. For her feckless brother had soon 
exhausted the patience of Granders Brothers; he 
had passed shiftlessly from employment to employ- 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


305 


ment, frequently dependent on Salvina and his 
father-in-law till old Jonas had declared, with all the 
dignity of his green shade, that his son-in-law — 
graceless offspring of a graceless sire — must never 
darken his door-step again. 

But the joy Mrs. Brill found in her grandchildren, 
the filling-out of her life, repaid Salvina amply for 
all the pinching necessary to subsidize her brother’s 
household. She winced, though, to see her mother 
drop thoughtlessly into the glossy arm-chair pre¬ 
sented by her absentee husband, and therein en¬ 
sconced dandle Lazarus’s children. Salvina was too 
sensitive to remind her mother, and shrank also from 
appearing fantastic. But that chair inspired a mor¬ 
bid repugnance, and one day, taking advantage of the 
fact that the stuffing began to extrude, she bought 
Lazarus a new and better easy-chair without saying 
why, and had the satisfaction of noting the relegation 
of the old one to a bed-room.- 

Two bright spots of colour dappled those long, 
monotonous years. One was Kitty; the other was 
the summer holiday. Kitty’s mere letters from the 
Continent — she wrote twice during the tour — were 
a source of exhilaration as well as of instruction. 
She brought nearer all those wonderful places which 
Salvina still promised herself to behold one day, 
though year after year she went steadily to Rams¬ 
gate. For her mother shrank from sea-voyages and 
strange places, as much as she loved the familiar 


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beach swarming with Jewish faces and nigger min¬ 
strels. Even Salvina’s little scheme of enthroning 
her mother expensively on the parade at Clacton-on- 
Sea, that mother unconsciously thwarted, though 
she endured equivalent splendour at Ramsgate at 
three guineas a week, with much grumbling over her 
daughter’s extravagance. 

Once indeed when Salvina had seriously projected 
Paris in the interest of her French, there had been 
a quarrel on the subject. There were many quarrels 
on many subjects, but it was always one quarrel and 
had always the same groundwork of dialogue on 
Mrs. Brill’s part, whatever the temporal variations. 

“ A nice daughter! To trample under foot her own 
flesh and blood, because she thinks I’m dependent 
on her! Well, well, do your own marketing, you 
little ignoramus who don’t know a skirt steak from 
a loin chop; you’ll soon see if I don’t earn my keep. 
I earned my living before you were born, and I can 
do so still. I’d rather live in one room than have 
my blood shed a day longer. I’ll send for Kitty — 
she never stamps on the little mother. She shan’t 
slave her heart out any more among strangers, my 
poor fatherless Kitty. No, we’ll live together, Kitty 
and I. Lazarus would jump at us — my own dear, 
handsome Lazarus. I never see him but he tells 
me how the children are crying day and night for 
their granny, and why don’t I go and live with him ? 
He wouldn’t spit upon the mother who suckled him, 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


807 


and even Rhoda has more respect for me than my 
own real daughter.” 

Such was the basal theme; the particular vari¬ 
ation, when the holiday was concerned, took the 
shape of religious remonstrance. “And where am 
I to get kosher food in Paris ? In Ramsgate I en¬ 
joy myself; there’s a kosher butcher, and all the 
people I know. It’s as good as London.” 

Tears always conquered Salvina. She had an 
infinite patience with her mother on these occasions, 
not resenting the basal theme, but regarding it as 
a mere mechanic explosion of nervous irritation, 
generated by her lonely life. Sometimes she forgot 
this and argued, but was always the more sorry 
afterward. Not that she did not enjoy Ramsgate. 
Her nature that craved for so much and was con¬ 
tent with so little found even Ramsgate a Paradise 
after a year of the slum-school, to which she always 
returned looking almost healthy. But this constant 
absorption in her mother’s personality narrowed her 
almost to the same mental bookless horizon. All 
the red blood of ambition was sucked away as by 
a vampire; her energy was sapped and the unchang¬ 
ing rut of school-existence combined to fray away 
her individuality. She never went into any society; 
the rare invitation to a social event was always re¬ 
fused with heart-shrinking. Every year made her 
more shy and ungainly, more bent in on herself, 
and on the little round of school and home life, 


308 


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which left her indeed too weary in brain and body 
for aught beside. She sank into the scholastic old 
maid, unconsciously taking on the very gait and 
accent of Miss Rolver, into the limitations of whose 
life she had once had a flash of insight. Yet she 
was unaware of her decay; her automatic brain was 
still alive in one corner, where the dreams hived and 
nested. Paris and Rome and the wonder-places still 
shone on the horizon, together with the noble young 
Bayard, handsome and tender-hearted. And twice 
or thrice a year Kitty would flash upon the scene to 
remind her that there was truly a world of elegance 
and adventure. Her mother had begun to worry 
over the beautiful Kitty’s failure to marry; she had 
imagined that in those gilded regions she would have 
snapped up a South African millionaire or other 
ingenuous person. How nearly Kitty had actually 
come to doing so, even without the spring-board of 
Bedford Square, Salvina never told her. She had 
kept both Sugarman and Moss M. Rosenstein from 
pestering her mother, by telling the Shadchan that 
Kitty’s voice and Kitty’s alone weighed with Kitty 
in such a matter. When the swarthy capitalist re¬ 
turned to the Cape, despairing, Salvina had written 
to congratulate her sister on her high-mindedness. 
In the years that followed, she had to endure many 
a bad quarter of an hour of maternal reproach be¬ 
cause Kitty did not marry, but Mrs. Brill’s vengeance 
was unconscious. Kitty herself never heard a word 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


309 


of these complaints; to her the mother was all 
wreathed smiles, for she never came without bring¬ 
ing a trinket, and every one of these* trinkets meant 
days of happiness. The little lockets and brooches 
were shown about to all the neighbours and hitched 
them on to the bright spheres which Kitty adorned. 
Carriages and footmen, soft carpets and gilded mir¬ 
rors gleamed in the air. “ My Kitty ! ” rolled under 
Mrs. Brill’s tongue like a honeyed sweet. Kitty’s little 
gifts, flashing splendidly on the everyday dulness, 
made more impression than all the steady monoto¬ 
nous services of Salvina. For the rest, Salvina 
conscientiously repaid these gifts in kind on Kitty’s 
birthdays and other high days. 

X 

When Salvina was twenty-three years old a change 
came. Lazarus ceased to demand assistance: he 
was cheery and self-confident, and inclined to chaff 
Salvina on her prim ways. He removed to a larger 
house and her easy-chair disappeared before a more 
elegant. And the apparent brightness of her 
brother’s prospects brightened Salvina’s. Her sav¬ 
ings increased, and, under the continuous profit of 
his self-support, she was soon able to meditate 
changes on her own account. Either she would give 
up her night-teaching — which had been more and 
more undermining her system — or she would pro- 


310 


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cure her mother and Kitty a delightful surprise by 
migrating back to Hackney. 

Her mind hesitated between the joyous alterna¬ 
tives, lingering voluptuously now on one, now on the 
other, but somehow aware that it would ultimately 
choose the latter, for Kitty on her rare visits never 
failed to grumble at the lowness of the neighbour¬ 
hood and the expense of cabs, and Mrs. Brill still 
yearned to see horses pawing outside her door-step. 
But an unexpected visit from Kitty, not six weeks 
after her last, and equally unexpected in place — for 
it was at Salvina’s school — decided the matter sud¬ 
denly. 

It was about half-past twelve, and Salvina, long 
since a full “ assistant teacher,” was seated at her 
desk, correcting the German exercises of a private 
pupil. Sparsely dotted about the symmetric benches 
were a few demure criminals undergoing the punish¬ 
ment of being kept in, and the air was still heavy 
with the breaths and odours of the blissful departed. 
A severe museum-case, with neatly ticketed speci¬ 
mens, backed Salvina’s chair, and around the spacious 
room hung coloured diagrams of animals and plants. 
Kitty seemed a specimen from another world as her 
coquettish Leghorn hat flowering with poppies burst 
upon the scholastic scene. 

“Oh, dear, I thought you’d be alone,” she said 
pettishly. 

“ Is it anything important ? The children don’t 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


311 


matter,” said Salvina. “You can tell me in German. 
I do hope nothing is the matter.” 

“ No, nothing so alarming as that,” Kitty replied 
in German. “ But I thought I’d find you alone and 
have a chat.” 

“ I had to stay here with the children. They must 
be punished.” 

“ Seems more like punishing yourself. But have 
you lunched, then ? ” 

“ No.” Salvina flushed slightly. 

“No? What’s up? A Jewish fast! Ninth day 
of Ab, fall of Temple, and funny things like that. 
One always seems to stumble upon them in the East 
End.” 

“ How you do rattle on, Kitty! ” and Salvina 
smiled. “No, I shall lunch as soon as these chil¬ 
dren are released.” 

“ But why wait for that ? ” 

Salvina’s blush deepened. “Well, one doesn’t 
want to eat a good dinner before hungry girls.” 

“A good dinner! Why, what in heaven’s name do 
you get? Truffles and plovers’ eggs?” 

“ No, but I get a very good meal sent in from the 
Cooking Centre opposite, and compared with what 
these girls get at home, steak and potatoes are the 
luxuries of Lucullus.” 

“ Oh, I don’t believe it. They all look fatter than 
you. Then this is double punishment for you — 
extra work and hunger. Do send them away. They 


312 


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get on my nerves. And have your lunch like a sen¬ 
sible being.” And without waiting for Salvina’s 
assent: “Go along, girls,” she said airily. 

The girls hesitated and looked at Salvina, who 
coloured afresh, but said, “Yes, this lady pleads for 
you, and I said that if you all promised to — ” 

“Oh, yes, teacher,” they interrupted enthusias¬ 
tically, and were off. 

“Well, what I came to tell you, Sally, is that I’m 
not sure of my place much longer.” 

Salvina turned pale, and that much-tried heart of 
hers thumped like a hammer. She waited in silence 
for the facts. 

“ Lily is going to be married.” 

“Well? All the more reason for Mabel to have 
a companion.” 

Kitty shook her head. “ It’s the beginning of the 
end. Marriage is a contagious complaint in a family. 
First one member is taken off, then another. But 
that’s not the worst.” 

“ No ? ” Poor Salvina held her breath. 

“Who do you think is the happy man? You’ll 
never guess.” 

“ How should I ? I don’t know their circle.” 

“Yes, you do. I mean, you know him.” 

Salvina wrinkled her forehead vainly. 

“No, you’ll never guess after all these years! 
Moss M. Rosenstein!” 

“ Is it possible ? ” Salvina gasped. “ Lily Samuel- 





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313 


‘‘Yes — Lily Samuelson ! ” 

“ But he must be an old man by now.” 

“ Well, she isn’t a chicken. And you thought it 
was such an outrage of him to ask for me. I sup¬ 
pose having once got inside the door to see me, he 
had the idea of aspiring higher.” 

“ Oh, don’t say higher, Kitty. Richer, that’s all 
— and now, I should say, lower, inasmuch as Lily 
Samuelson stoops to pick up what you passed by 
with scorn. And picks him up out of Sugarman’s 
hand, probably.” 

“Yes, it’s all very well, and it’s revenge enough in 
a way to think to myself what I do think to myself, 
when I see the young couple going on, and Moss is 
mortally scared of me, as I shoot him a glare, now 
and again. I shouldn’t be surprised if he eggs them 
on to get rid of me. It would be too bad to be done 
out of everything.” 

“ Well, we must hope for the best,” said Salvina, 
kissing her. “After all, you can always get an¬ 
other place.” 

“ I’m getting old,” Kitty said glumly. 

“ You old ! ” and the anaemic little school-mistress 
looked with laughing admiration at her sister’s un¬ 
tarnished radiance. But when Kitty went, and 
lunch came, Salvina could not eat it. 


314 


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XI 

It was clear, however, that of the alternatives — 
giving up the night-work or returning to Hackney 
— the latter was the one favoured by Providence. 
Kitty might at any moment return to the parental 
roof, and there must be something, that Kitty would 
consider a roof, to shelter her. 

On Saturday Salvina went house-hunting alone in 
Hackney, and there—as if further pointed out by 
Providence — stood their old house “To let!” It 
had a dilapidated air, as if it had stood empty for 
many moons and had lost hope. It seemed to her 
symbolic of her mother’s fortunes, and her imagi¬ 
nation leapt at the idea of recuperating both. Very 
soon she had re-rented the house, though from an¬ 
other landlord, and the workmen were in possession, 
making everything bright and beautiful. Salvina 
chose wall-papers of the exact pattern of aforetime, 
and ordered the painting and decorations to repeat 
the old effects. They were to move in, a few days 
before the quarter. 

Her happy secret shone in her cheeks, and she felt 
all bright and refreshed, as if she, too, were being 
painted and cleaned and redecorated. The task of 
keeping it all from her mother was a great daily 
strain, and the secret had to overbrim for the edifi¬ 
cation of Lazarus. Lazarus hailed the change with 
expressions of unselfish joy, that brought tears into 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


315 


Salvina’s eyes. He even went with her to see how 
the repairs were getting on, chatted with the work¬ 
men, disapproved of the landlord’s stinginess in not 
putting down new drain pipes, and made a special 
call upon that gentleman. 

One day on her return from school Salvina found 
a postcard to the effect that the house was ready for 
occupation. Salvina was for once glad that she had 
never yet found time to persuade her mother to learn 
to read. She went to feast her eyes on the new-old 
house and came home with the key, which she hid 
carefully till the Sunday afternoon, when she induced 
her mother to make an excursion to Victoria Park. 
The weather was dull, and the old woman needed a 
deal of coaxing, especially as the coaxing must be so 
subtle as not to arouse suspicion. 

On the way back in the evening from the Park, 
which, as there was an unexpected band playing 
popular airs, her mother enjoyed, Salvina led her by 
the old familiar highways and byways back to the 
old home, keeping her engrossed in conversation lest 
it should suddenly befall her to ask why- they were 
going that way. The expedient was even more 
successful than she had bargained for, Mrs. Brill’s 
sub-consciousness calmly accepting all the old un¬ 
changed streets and sights and sounds, while her 
central consciousness was absorbed by the talk. Her 
legs trod automatically the dingy Hackney Terrace 
to which she had so often returned from her Park 


316 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


outing, her hand pushed open mechanically the old 
garden-gate, and as Salvina, breathlessly wondering 
if the spell could be kept up till the very last, opened 
the door with the latch-key, her mother sank wearily, 
and with a sigh of satisfaction, upon the accustomed 
hall-chair. In that instant of maternal apathy, the 
astonishment was wholly Salvina’s. That hall-chair 
on which her mother sat was the very one which had 
stood there in the bygone happy years ; the hat-rack 
was the one with which her father had “ eloped ”; on 
it stood the little flower-pots and on the wall hung the 
two engravings of the trials of Lord William Russell 
and Earl Stafford exactly in the same place, and fac¬ 
ing her stood the open parlour with all the old furni¬ 
ture and colour. In that uncanny instant Salvina 
wondered if she had passed through years of hal¬ 
lucination. There was her mother, natural and un¬ 
concerned, bonneted and jewelled, exactly as she 
had come from Camberwell years ago when they had 
entered the house together. Perhaps they were still 
at that moment; she knew from her studies as well 
as from experience that you can dream years of har¬ 
assing and multiplex experience in a single second. 
Perhaps there had been no waking hallucination; per¬ 
haps the long waiting for her mother to appear with 
the house-key had made her sleepy, and in that 
instant of doze she had dreamed all those horrible 
things — the empty house, her father’s flight, his re¬ 
appearance at her brother’s marriage; the long years 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


317 


of evening lessons. Perhaps she was still seventeen, 
studying the Greek verbs for the Bachelorhood of 
Arts, perhaps her mother was still a happy wife. 
Her eyes filled with tears, and she let herself dwell 
upon the wondrous possibility a second or so longer 
than she believed in it. For the smell of new paint 
was too potent; it routed the persuasions of the old 
furniture. And in another instant it had penetrated 
through Mrs. Brill’s fatigue. She started up, aware 
of something subtly wrong, ere clearer consciousness 
dawned. 

“ Michael! ” she shrieked, groping. 

“Hush, hush, mother!” said Salvina, with a pain 
as of swords at her heart. She felt her mother had 
stumbled — with whatever significance — upon the 
word of the enigma. “Another trick has been 
played on us.” 

“A trick ! ” Mrs. Brill groped further. “But you 
brought me. How comes this house here ? What 
has happened ? ” 

“ I wanted to surprise you. I have rented the old 
house, and some one else has put in the old furniture.” 

“ Michael is coming back! You and your father 
have plotted.” 

“ Oh, mother! How can you accuse me of such a 
thing! ” All the expected joy of the surprise had 
been changed to anguish, she felt, both for her and 
for her mother. Oh, what a fatal mistake! “ I 

won’t have the furniture, we’ll pitch it into the street 


318 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


— we are going to live here together, mammy, you 
and I, in the old home. We can afford it now.” 

She laid her cheek to her mother’s, but Mrs. Brill 
broke away petulantly and ran toward the parlour. 
“And does he think I’ll have anything to do with 
him after all these years! ” she cried. 

“ Dear mother, he doesn’t know you if he thinks 
that! ” said Salvina, following her. 

“No, indeed! And a chip out of my best vase, 
just as I thought! And that isn’t my chair—he’s 
shoved me in one of a worse set. The horsehair may 
seem the same, but look at the legs — no carving at 
all. And where’s the extra leaf of the table ? Gone, 
too, I daresay. And my little gilt shovel that used 
to stand in the fender here, what’s become of that ? 
And do you call this a sofa ? with the castors all off! 
Oh, my God, she has ruined all my furniture,” and 
she burst into hysteric tears. 

Salvina could do nothing till the torrent had spent 
itself. But she was busy, thinking. She saw that 
again her brother and her father had conspired to¬ 
gether. Hence Lazarus’s officiousness toward the 
landlord and the workmen — that he might easily get 
the entry to the house. But perhaps the conspiracy 
had not the significance her mother put upon it. Per¬ 
haps Lazarus was principal, not agent; in the flush 
of his new prosperity he had really projected a gen¬ 
erous act; perhaps he had resolved to put the coping- 
stone on the surprise Salvina was preparing for her 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


319 


mother, and had hence negotiated with the father for 
the old things. If so, she felt she had not the right 
to make her mother refuse them; the rather, she 
must hasten at once to Lazarus to pour out her 
appreciation of his thoughtfulness. 

“Come along, mother,” she said at last, “don’t sit 
there, crying. I think Lazarus must have bought 
back the things for you. You see, mammy, I wanted 
to give you a little surprise, and dear Lazarus has 
given me a little surprise.” 

“ Do you really think it’s only Lazarus ? ” asked 
Mrs. Brill, and to Salvina’s anxious ear there seemed 
a shade of disappointment in the tone. 

“ I’m sure it is — father couldn’t possibly have the 
impudence. After all these years, too ! ” 

But when she at last got her mother to Lazarus, 
that gentleman confessed aggressively that he had 
been only the agent. 

“ I don’t see why you shouldn’t let the poor old 
man come back,” he said. “ The other person died 
a year ago, only nobody liked to tell mother, she was 
so bristly and snappy.” 

“Ah,” interrupted Mrs. Brill exultantly, “then 
Heaven has heard my curses. May she burn in the 
lowest Gehenna. May her body become one yellow 
flame like her dyed hair.” 

“ Hush ! ” said Salvina sternly. “ God shall judge 
the dead.” 

“ Oh, of course you always take everybody’s part 


320 


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against your mother.” And Mrs. Brill burst into 
tears again and sank into the new easy-chair. 

“ I do think mother’s right,” said Lazarus sullenly. 
“ Why do you stand in her way ? ” 

“ I ? ” Salvina was paralyzed. 

“Yes, if it wasn’t for you — ” 

“Mother, do you hear what Lazarus is saying? 
That I keep you from father! ” 

“ Father ! A pretty father to you ! He waits till 
she’s dead, and then he wants to creep back to us. 
But let him lie on her grave. He’ll swell to bursting 
before he crosses my door-step.” 

“ There, Lazarus, do you hear ? ” 

“Yes, I hear,” he said incredulously. “ But does 
she know what father offers her — every comfort, 
every luxury? He is rich now.” 

“ Rich ? ” said Mrs. Brill. “ The old swindler ! ” 

“ He didn’t swindle — he’s very sorry for the past 
now, and awfully kind and‘generous.” 

Salvina had a flash of insight. “ Ho ! So this is 
why — ” She checked herself and looked round the 
handsome room, and the new easy-chair in which her 
mother sat became suddenly as hateful as the old. 

“ Well, suppose it is ? ” said Lazarus defiantly. 
“ I don’t see why we shouldn’t share in his luck.” 

“And where does the luck come from?” Salvina 
demanded. 

“ What’s that to do with us ? From the Stock 
Exchange, I believe.” 


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321 


“ And where did he get the money to gamble 
with ? ” 

“ Oh, they always had money.” 

Salvina’s eyes blazed. The nerveless creature of 
the school became a fury. “ And you’d touch that! ” 
“Hang it all, he owes us reparation. You, too, 
Salvina — he is anxious to do everything for you. 
He says you must chuck up school — it’s simply 
wearing you away. He says he wants to take you 
abroad — to Paris.” 

“ Oh, and so he thinks he’ll get round mother by 
getting round me, does he ? But let him take his 
furniture away at once, or we’ll pitch it into the 
street. At once, do you hear ? ” 

“ He won’t mind.” Lazarus smiled irritatingly. 
“ He wants to put better furniture in, and his real 
desire is to move to a big house in Highbury New 
Park. But I persuaded him to put back the old 
furniture — I thought it would touch you — a token, 
you know, that he wanted ‘auld lang syne.’ ” 

“ Yes, yes, I understood,” said Salvina, and then 
she thought suddenly of Kitty and a burst of hysteric 
laughter caught her. “ Elopements economically 
conducted,” went through her mind. “ By the day 
or hour! ” And she imagined the new phrases Kitty 
would coin. “The Prodigal Father and the Pan¬ 
technicon”— “The old Love and the old Furniture,” 
and the wild laughter rang on, till Lazarus was quite 
disconcerted. 



322 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“ I don’t see where the fun comes in,” he said 
wrathfully. “Father is very sorry, indeed he is. He 
quite cried to me — on that very chair where mother 
is sitting. I swear to you he did. And you have the 
heart to laugh ! ” 

“Would you have me cry, too? No, no; I am 
glad he is punished.” 

“Yes — a nice miserable lonely old age he has 
before him.” 

“ He has plenty of money.” 

“You’re a cold, unfeeling minx! I don’t envy the 
man who marries you, Salvina.” 

Salvina flushed. “I don’t, either — if he were to 
treat me as mother has been treated.” 

“Yes, no one has had a life like mine, since the 
world began,” moaned Mrs. Brill, and her waning 
tears returned in full flood. 

“ My poor mammy,” and Salvina put a handker¬ 
chief to the flooded cheeks. “ Come home, we have 
had enough of this.” 

Mrs. Brill rose obediently. 

“ Oh, yes, take her home,” said Lazarus savagely, 
“take her to your shabby, stinking lodging, when 
she might have a house in Highbury New Park and 
three servants.” 

“ She has a house at Hackney, and I’ll give her a 
servant, too. Come, mother.” 

Salvina mopped up her mother’s remaining tears, 
and with an inspiration of arrogant independence, 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


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she rang for Lazarus’s servant and bade her hail a 
hansom cab. 

“ If you don’t want all Hackney to come and gaze 
at a furnished road,” she said, in parting, “you’ll 
take away that furniture yourself.” 

Mrs. Brill bowled homeward, half consoled for 
everything by this charioted magnificence. Some 
neighbours stood by gossiping as she alighted, and 
then her unspoken satisfaction was complete. 

XII 

They moved into the new-old house, after Salvina 
had carefully ascertained that the furniture had re¬ 
turned to the cloud under which it had so long lived. 
In her resentment against its reappearance, she 
spent more than she could afford on the rival furni¬ 
ture that succeeded it, and which she now studied to 
make unlike it, so that quite without any touch of con¬ 
scious taste, it became light, elegant, and even artistic 
in comparison with the old horsehair massiveness. 

Then began a very bad year for Salvina, even 
though the Damocles sword of Kitty’s dismissal 
never fell, and Lily’s migration to the Cape with 
Moss M. Rosenstein left Kitty still in power as 
companion to Mabel, to judge at least by Kitty’s not 
seeking the parental roof, even as visitor. Mrs. Brill’s 
happiness did not keep pace with the restored gran¬ 
deurs and Salvina’s own spurt of hope died down. 


324 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


She grew wanner than ever, going listlessly to her 
work and returning limp and fagged out. 

“ You mew me up here with not a soul to speak to 
from morning till night/’ her mother burst forth one 
day. 

Salvina was not sorry to have her mother’s silent 
lachrymosity thus interpreted. But she regretted that 
her helpless parent had not expressed her satisfaction 
with gossip when the Ghetto provided it, instead of 
yearning for higher scenes. She tried again to per¬ 
suade Mrs. Brill to learn to read by way of mental 
resource, and Mrs. Brill indeed made some spasmodic 
efforts to master the alphabet and the vagaries of 
pronunciation from an infant’s primer. But her brain 
was too set; and she forgot from word to word, and 
made bold bad guesses, so that even when “a fat cat 
sat on a mat ” she was capable of making a fat cow 
eat in a mug. She struggled loyally though, except 
when Salvina’s attention relaxed for an instant, and 
then she would proceed by leaps and bounds, like a 
cheating child with the teacher’s eye off it, getting 
over five lines in the time she usually took to spell 
out one, and paradoxically pleased with herself at her 
rapid progress. 

Salvina was in despair. There is no creche for 
mothers, or she might have sent Mrs. Brill to one. 
She bethought herself of at last laying on a servant, 
as providing the desired combination of grandeur 
and gossip. To pay for the servant she undertook 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


325 


two hours of extra night-teaching. But the maid-of 
all-work proved only an exhaustless ground for 
grumbling. Mrs. Brill had never owned a servant, 
and the girl’s deviation from angelhood of character 
and unerring perfection of action in every domestic 
department were a constant disappointment and 
grief to the new mistress. 

“ A nice thing you have done for me,” she wept to 
Salvina, having carefully ascertained the servant was 
out of ear-shot, “ to seat a mistress on my head — 
and for that I must pay her into the bargain.” 

“ Aren’t you glad you haven’t got three servants ? ” 
said Salvina, with a touch of irresistible irony. 

“ Don’t throw up to me that you’re saving me 
from falling on your father. I can be my own 
bread-winner. I don’t want your doll’s house furni¬ 
ture that one is scared to touch — like walking 
among eggshells. I’d rather live in one room and 
scrub floors than be beholden to anybody. Then 
I should be my own mistress, and not under a 
daughter’s thumb. If only Kitty would marry, then 
I could go to her. Why doesn’t she marry ? It 
isn’t as if she were like you. Is there a prettier girl 
in the whole congregation ? It’s because she’s got 
no money, my poor, hardworking little Kitty. Her 
father would give her a dowry, if he were a man. 
not a pig.” 

“ Mother! ” Salvina was white and trembling. 
“How can you dream of that?” 


326 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“Not for myself. I’d see him rot before I’d take 
a farthing of his money. But I’m not domineering 
and spiteful like you. I don’t stand in the way of 
other people benefiting. The money will only go 
to some other vermin. Kitty may as well have 
some.” 

“ Lazarus has some. That’s enough, and more 
than enough.” 

“ Lazarus deserves it — he is a better son to me 
than you are a daughter! ” and the tears fell again. 

Salvina cast about for what to do. Her mother’s 
nerves were no doubt entirely disorganized by her 
sufferings and by the shock of Lazarus’s trick. 
Some radical medicine must be applied. But every 
day Duty took Salvina to school and harassed her 
there and drove her to private lessons afterward, 
and left her neither the energy nor the brain for 
further innovations. And whenever she met Lazarus 
by accident — for she was too outraged to visit a 
house practically kept up by dishonourable money, 
apart from her objection to its perpetually festive 
atmosphere of solo-whist supper-parties — he would 
sneer at her high and mighty airs in casting out 
the furniture. “ Oh, we’re very grand now, we 
keep a servant; we have cut our father off with a 
shilling.” 

She wished her mother would not go to see Laza¬ 
rus, but she felt she had not the right to interfere 
with these visits, though Mrs. Brill returned from 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


327 


them, fretful and restive. Evidently Lazarus must 
be still insinuating reconciliation. 

“ Lazarus worries you, mother, I feel sure,’' she 
ventured to say once. 

“ Oh, no, he is a good son. He wants me to live 
with him.” 

“ What! On her money ! ” 

“ It isn’t her money — your father made it on the 
Stock Exchange.” 

“ Who told you so ? ” 

“ Didn’t you hear Lazarus say so yourself ? ” 

Then a horrible suspicion came to Salvina. “ He 
doesn’t set father at you when you go there ? ” she 
cried. 

Mrs. Brill flushed furiously. “ I’d like to see 
him try it on,” she murmured. 

Salvina stooped to kiss her. “ But he tells you 
tales of father’s riches, I suppose.” 

“ Who wants his riches ? If he offered me my 
own horse and carriage, I wouldn’t be seen with 
him after the disgrace he’s put upon me.” 

“ I wish, mother, Lazarus had inherited your 
sense of honour.” 

Mrs. Brill was pleased. “There isn’t a woman 
in the world with more pride! Your father made 
a mistake when he began with me! ” 


328 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


XIII 

A horse and carriage did come, one flamboyant 
afternoon, but it was the Samuelsons’, and brought 
the long-absent Kitty. And Kitty as usual brought 
a present. This time it was a bracelet, and Mrs. Brill 
clasped and unclasped it ecstatically, feeling that she 
had at least one daughter who loved her and did not 
domineer. Salvina was at school, and Mrs. Brill 
took Kitty all over the house, enjoying her approval, 
and accepting all the praise for the lighter and more 
artistic furniture. She told her of the episode of the 
return of the old furniture — “And didn’t have the 
decency to put new castors on the sofa she had 
sprawled on! ” 

Kitty’s laughter was as loud and ringing as Sal¬ 
vina had anticipated; Mrs. Brill coloured under it, as 
though she were found food for laughter. “ What a 
ridiculous person he is! ” Kitty added hastily. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Brill with eager pride and relief. 
“ He thought he could coax me back like a dog with 
a bit of sugar.” 

“It would be too funny to live with him again.” 
And Kitty’s eyes danced. 

“ Do you think so ? ” said Mrs. Brill anxiously. 
And under the sunshine of her daughter’s approval 
she confided to her that he had really turned up 
twice at Lazarus’s, beautifully costumed, with dia¬ 
monds on his fingers and a white flower in his 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


329 


button-hole, but that she had repulsed him as she 
would repulse a drunken heathen. He had put his 
arms round her, but she had shaken him off as one 
shakes off a black beetle. 

Kitty turned away and stuffed her handkerchief 
into her mouth. She knew there was a tragic side, 
but the comic aspect affected her more. 

“ Then you think I was right ? ” Mrs. Brill 
wound up. 

“ Of course,” Kitty said soothingly. “ What do 
you want of him ? ” 

“ But don’t tell Salvina, or she’d eat my head off.” 
And then, the eager upleaping fountain of her 
mother’s egoistic babblings beginning at last to 
trickle thinly, Kitty found a breathing-space in which 
to inform her of the great news that throbbed in her 
own breast. 

“ Lily Samuelson’s dead! Mrs. Rosenstein, you 
know! ” 

“Oh, my God!” ejaculated Mrs. Brill, trembling 
like a leaf. Nothing upset her more than to find 
that persons within her ken could actually die. 

“ Yes, we had a cable from the Cape yester¬ 
day.” 

“Hear, O Israel! Let me see—yes, she must 
have died in child-birth.” 

“She did — the house is all in hysterics. I couldn’t 
stand it any longer. I ordered the carriage and came 
here.” 


330 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“ My poor Kitty ! That Lily was too old to have 
a baby. And now he will marry Mabel.” 

“ Oh, no, mother.” 

“Oh, yes, he will. Mabel will jump at him, you’ll 
see.” 

“But it isn’t legal — you can’t marry your deceased 
wife’s sister.” 

“I know you can’t in England—what foolishness! 
But they’ll go to Holland to be married.” 

“ Don’t be so absurd, mother.” 

“Absurd!” Mrs. Brill glared. “You mark my 
words. They’ll be in Holland before the year’s 
out, like Hyam Emanuel’s eldest brother-in-law and 
the red-haired sister of Samuel, the pawnbroker.” 

“Well, I don’t care if they are,” said Kitty, yawning. 

“ Don’t care ! Why, you’ll lose your place. They 
kept you on for Mabel, but now — ” 

Kitty cut her short. “ Don’t worry, mother. I’ll 
be all right. He’s not married Mabel yet.” 

This reminder seemed to come to Mrs. Brill like 
a revelation, so fast had her imagination worked. 
She calmed down and Kitty took the opportunity to 
seek to escape. “ Tell Salvina the news,” she said. 
“ She’ll be specially interested in it. In fact, judging 
by the last time, she’ll be more excited than I am,” 
and she smiled somewhat mysteriously. “ Tell her 
I’m sorry I missed her — I was hoping to find her 
having a holiday, but apparently I haven’t been 
lucky enough to strike some Jewish fast.” 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


331 


But partly because Mrs. Brill was enraptured by 
her beautiful daughter, partly to keep the pompous 
equipage outside her door as long as possible, she 
detained Kitty so unconscionably that Salvina arrived 
from school. Kitty flew to embrace her as usual, 
but arrested herself, shocked. 

“Why, Sally!” she cried. “You look like a 
ghost! What’s the matter?” 

“ Nothing,” said Salvina with a wan smile. “Just 
the excitement of seeing you, I suppose.” 

Kitty performed the postponed embrace but re¬ 
mained dubious and shaken. Was it that her mind 
was morbidly filled with funereal images, or was it 
that her fresh eye had seen what her mother’s 
custom-blinded vision had missed — that there was 
death in Salvina’s face ? 

This face of death-in-life stirred up unwonted emo¬ 
tions in Kitty and made her refrain apprehensively 
from speaking again of Lily’s death; and some days 
later, when the first bustle of grief had subsided in 
Bedford Square, Kitty, still haunted by that grew- 
some vision, wrote Salvina a letter. 


<k My dear old Sally, — You must really draw in your horns. 
You were not looking at all well the other day. You are burning 
the candle at both ends, I am sure. That horrid Board School 
is killing you. I am going to beg a fortnight’s holiday for you, 
and I am going to take you to Boulogne for a week, and then, 
when you are all braced up again, we can have the second week 
at Paris.” 


332 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“ My dearest and best of Sisters,” [Salvina replied,] 
“ How shocking the news mother has told me of the death of poor 
Lily ! If she did wrong she was speedily punished. But let 
us hope she really loved him. I am sure that your brooding 
on her sad fate and your sympathy with the family in this terri¬ 
ble affliction has made you fancy all sorts of things about me, 
just as mother is morbidly apprehensive of that horrible creature 
marrying Mabel and thus robbing you of your place. But your 
sweet letter did me more good than if I had really gone to Paris. 
How did you know it was the dream of my life? But it cannot 
be realized just yet, for it would be impossible for me to be 
spared from school just now. Miss Green is away with diph¬ 
theria, and as this is examination time, Miss Rolver has her hands 
full. Besides, mother would be left alone. Don’t worry about 
me, darling. I always feel like this about this time of year, but 
the summer holiday is not many weeks off and Ramsgate always 
sets me up again. 

“ Your loving sister, 

“ Salvina. 

“ P.S. Mother told me you advised her not to go to Laza¬ 
rus’s any more, and she isn’t going. I am so glad, dear. These 
visits have worried her, as Lazarus is so persistent. I am only 
sorry I didn’t think of enlisting your influence before — it is 
naturally greater than mine. Good-bye, dear. 

“P.P.S. I find I have actually forgotten to thank you for 
your generous offer. But you know all that is in my heart, don’t 
you, darling ? ” 

All the same Kitty’s alarm began to communicate 
itself to Salvina, especially after repeated if transient 
premonitions of fainting in her class-room. For 
what would happen if she really fell ill ? She could 
get sick leave of course for a time; though that 
would bring her under the eagle eye of the Board 
Doctor, before which every teacher quailed. He 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


333 


might brutally pronounce her unfit for service. 
And how if she did break down permanently ? Or 
if she died! Her savings were practically nil; her 
salary ceased with her breath. Who would support 
her mother ? Kitty of course would nobly take up 
the burden, but it would be terribly hard on her, 
especially when Mabel Samuelson should come to 
marry. Not that she was going to die, of course; 
she was too used to being sickly. Death was only 
a shadow, hovering far off. 

XIV 

What was to be done ? An inspiration came to her 
in the shape of a pamphlet. Life Assurance! Ah, 
that was it. Scottish Widows’ Fund ! How pecul¬ 
iarly apposite the title. If her mother could be guar¬ 
anteed a couple of thousand pounds, Death would 
lose its sting. Salvina carefully worked out all the 
arithmetical points involved, and discovered to her 
surprise that life assurance was a form of gambling. 
The Company wagered her that she would live to a 
certain age, and she wagered that she would not. 
But after a world of trouble in filling up documents 
and getting endorsers, when she went before the 
Company’s Doctor she was refused. The bet was 
not good enough. “ Heart weak,” was the ruthless 
indictment. “You ought not to teach,” the Doctor 
even told her privately, and amid all her consternation 


334 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


Salvina was afraid lest by some mysterious brother¬ 
hood he should communicate with the Board Doctor 
and rob her of her situation. She began praying to 
God extemporaneously, in English. That was, for 
her, an index of impotence. She was at the end of 
her resources. She could see only a blank wall, and 
the wall was a great gravestone on which was 
chiselled : “ Hie jacet , Salvina Brill, School Board 
Teacher, Undergraduate of London University. Un¬ 
loved and unhappy.” 

She wept over the inscription, being still romantic. 
Poor mother, poor Kitty, what a blow her death would 
be to them! Even Lazarus would be sorry. And in 
the thought of them she drifted away from the rare 
mood of self-pity and wondered again how she could 
get together enough money before she died to secure 
her mother’s future. But no suggestion came even 
in answer to prayer. Once she thought of the Stock 
Exchange, but it seemed to her vaguely wicked to 
conjure with stocks and shares. She had read arti¬ 
cles against it. Besides, what did she understand ? 
True, she understood as much as her father. But 
who knew whether his money really came from this 
source ? She dismissed the Stock Exchange despair¬ 
ingly. 

And meanwhile Mrs. Brill continued peevish and 
lachrymose, and Salvina found it more and more dif¬ 
ficult to hide her own melancholy. One day, as she 
was leaving the school-premises, Sugarman the Shad- 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


335 


chan accosted her. “ Do make a beginning,” he 
said winningly. “ Only a sixteenth of a ticket. You 
can’t lose.” 

Sugarman still never thought of her even as a ref¬ 
uge for impecunious bachelors, but with that shame¬ 
less pertinacity which was the secret of his success, 
both as British marriage-maker and continental lot¬ 
tery agent, he had never ceased cajoling her toward 
his other net. He was now destined to a success 
which surprised even himself. Her scrupulous con¬ 
scientiousness undermined by her analysis of the 
Assurance System, Salvina inquired eagerly as to 
the prizes, and bought three whole tickets at a quar¬ 
ter of the price of one Assurance instalment. 

Sugarman made a careful note of the numbers, 
and so did Salvina. But it was unnecessary in her 
case. They were printed on her brain, graven on 
her heart, repeated in her prayers; they hovered 
luminous across her day-dreams, and if they dis¬ 
tracted feverishly her dreams of the night, yet 
they tinged the school-routine pleasantly and made 
her mother’s fretfulness endurable. They actually 
improved her health, and as the May sunshine 
warmed the earth, Salvina felt herself bourgeoning 
afresh, and she told herself her fears were morbid. 

Nevertheless there was one thing she was re¬ 
solved to complete, in case she were truly doomed, 
and that was her mother’s education in reading, 
so often begun, so often foiled by her mother’s 


336 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


pertinacious subsidence into contented ignorance. 
Of what use even to assure Mrs. Brill’s physical 
future, if her mind were to be left a pauper, de¬ 
pendent on others ? How, without the magic re¬ 
source of books, could she get through the long 
years of age, when decrepitude might confine her 
to the chimney-corner? Already her talk groaned 
with aches and pains. 

Since the servant had been installed, the reading 
lessons had dropped off and finally been discon¬ 
tinued. Now that Salvina persisted in continuing, 
she found that her mother’s brain had retained 
nothing. Mrs. Brill had to begin again at the 
alphabet, and all the old routine of audacious 
guessing recommenced. Again a fat cow ate in 
a mug, for though Mrs. Brill had no head at all 
for corrections, she had a wonderful memory for 
her own mistakes, and took the whole sentence at 
a confident jump. It was an old friend. 

One evening, in the kitchen to which Mrs. Brill 
always gravitated when the servant was away, she 
paused between her misreadings to dilate on the 
inconsiderateness of the servant in having this day 
out, though she was paid for the full week, and 
though the mistress had to stick at home and do all 
the work. As Salvina seemed to be spiritless this 
evening, and allowed the domestic to go unde¬ 
fended, this topic was worn out more quickly than 
usual, but the never failing subject of Mrs. Brill’s 




THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


337 


aches and pains provided more pretexts for dodg¬ 
ing the hard words. And meantime in a chair 
beside hers, poor Salvina, silent as to her own 
aches and pains, and the faintness which was com¬ 
ing over her, strained her attention to follow in 
correction on the heels of her mother’s reading; 
but do what she would, she could not keep her 
eyes continuously on the little primer, and when¬ 
ever Mrs. Brill became aware that Salvina’s at¬ 
tention had relaxed, she scampered along at a 
breakneck speed, taking trisyllables as unhesitat¬ 
ingly as a hunter a three-barred gate. But every 
now and again Salvina would struggle back into 
concentration, and Mrs. Brill would tumble at the 
first ditch. 

At last, Mrs. Brill, to her content, found herself 
cantering along, unimpeded, for a great stretch. 
Salvina lay back in her chair, dead. 

“The broken dancer only merry danger,” read 
Mrs. Brill, at a joyous gallop. Suddenly the knocker 
beat a frantic tattoo on the street door. Up jumped 
Mrs. Brill, in sheer nervousness. 

Salvina lay rigid, undisturbed. 

“ She’s fallen asleep,” thought her mother, guiltily 
conscious of having taken advantage of her slumbers. 
“All the same, she might spare my aged bones the 
trouble of dragging upstairs.” But, being already 
on her feet, she mounted the stairs, and opened the 
door on Sugarman’s beaming, breathless face. 


338 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“Your daughter — Number 75,814,” he gasped. 

Mrs. Brill, who knew nothing of Salvina’s specula¬ 
tions, took some seconds to catch his drift. 

“What, what? ” she cried, trembling. 

“ I have won her a hundred thousand marks — 
the great prize ! ” 

“ The great prize ! ” screamed Mrs. Brill. “ Sal- 
vina ! Salvina! Come up,” and not waiting for her 
reply, and overturning the flower-pots on the hall- 
table, she flew downstairs, helter-skelter. “ Salvina ! ” 
she shook her roughly. “ Wake up ! You have won 
the great prize ! ” 

But Salvina did not wake up, though she had won 
the great prize. 

XV 

One Sunday afternoon nearly five months later a 
nondescript series of vehicles, erratically and un- 
punctually succeeding one another, drew up near the 
mortuary of the Jewish cemetery, but, from the pres¬ 
ence of women, it was obvious that something else 
than a funeral was in progress. In fact, the two 
four-wheelers, three hansom cabs, several dog-carts, 
and one open landau suggested rather a picnic amid 
the tombs. But it was only the ceremony of the set¬ 
ting of Salvina’s tombstone, which was attracting all 
these relatives and well-wishers. 

In the landau — which gave ample space for their 
knees — sat the same quartette that had shared a 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


339 


cab to Lazarus’s wedding, except that Salvina was 
replaced by Kitty. That ever young and beautiful 
person was the only member of the family who had 
the air of having fallen in the world, for despite that 
Salvina’s great prize was now added to Mr. Brill’s 
capital (he being the legal heir), he had refused to 
set up a groom in addition to a carriage. A coach¬ 
man, he insisted, was all that was necessary. It was 
the same tone that he had taken about the horsehair 
sofa, and it helped Mrs. Brill to feel that her husband 
was unchanged, after all. 

Arrived on the ground, the Brills found a gather¬ 
ing of the Jonases, reconciled by death and riches. 
Others were to arrive, and the party distributed itself 
about the cemetery with an air of conscious incom¬ 
pleteness. Old Jonas shook hands cordially with 
Lazarus, and wiped away a tear from under his green 
shade. A few of Salvina’s fellow-teachers had obeyed 
the notification of the advertisement in the Jewish 
papers, and were come to pay the last tribute of re¬ 
spect. The men wore black hat-bands, the women 
crape, which on all the nearer relatives already showed 
signs of wear. And among all these groups, con¬ 
versing amiably of this or that in the pleasant Octo¬ 
ber sunshine, the genteel stone-mason insinuated 
himself, pervading the gathering. His breast was 
divided between anxiety as to whether the parents 
would like the tombstone, and uncertainty as to 
whether they would pay on the spot. 


340 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“ Have you seen the stone ? What do you think 
of it ? ” he kept saying to everybody, with a deferen¬ 
tial assumption of artistic responsibility; though, as 
it was a handsome granite stone, the bulk of the 
chiselling had been done in Aberdeen, for the sake 
of economy, whilst the stone was green, and his own 
contribution had been merely the Hebrew lettering. 
One by one, under the guidance of the artist, the 
groups wandered toward the tombstone, and a spec¬ 
tator or two admiringly opened negotiations for future 
contingencies. An old lady who knew the stone¬ 
mason’s sister-in-law strove to make a bargain for her 
own tombstone, quite forgetting that the money she 
was saving on it would not be enjoyed by herself. 

“ What will you charge me ? ” she asked, with 
grotesque coquetry. “ I think you ought to do it 
cheaper for me” 

And in the House of the Priests the minister in 
charge of the ceremonial impatiently awaited the 
late comers, that he might intone the beautiful 
immemorial Psalms. He had made a close bargain 
with the cabman, and was anxious not to set him 
grumbling over the delay; apart from his desire to 
get back to his pretty wife, who was “ at home ” 
that afternoon. 

At last the genteel stone-mason found an oppor¬ 
tunity of piercing through the throng of friends 
that surrounded Mr. Brill, and of obsequiously in¬ 
viting the generous orderer of this especially hand- 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


341 


some and profitable tombstone to inspect it. Kitty 
followed in the wake of her parents. Almost at 
the tomb, a corpulent man with graying hair, issu¬ 
ing suddenly from an avenue of headstones, accosted 
her. She frowned. 

“You oughtn’t to have come,” she said. 

“Since I belong to the family, Kitty,” he re¬ 
monstrated, playing nervously with his massive 
watch seals. 

“No, you don’t,” she retorted. Then, relentingly: 
“ I told you, Moss, that I could not give you my 
formal consent till after my sister’s tombstone was 
set. That is the least respect I can pay her.” 
And she turned away from the somewhat discon¬ 
certed Rosenstein, feeling very right-minded and 
very forgiving toward Salvina for delaying by so 
many years her marriage with the South African 
magnate. 

Meantime Mr. Brill, in his heavily draped high 
hat, stood beside the pompous granite memorial, 
surveying it approvingly. His wife’s hand lay ten¬ 
derly in his own. Underneath their feet lay the 
wormy dust that had once palpitated with truth 
and honour, that had kept the conscience of the 
household. 

“That bit of scroll-work,” said the stone-mason 
admiringly, and with an air of having thrown it in 
at a loss; “you don’t often see a bit like that — 
everybody’s been saying so.” 


342 


THE KEEPER OF CONSCIENCE 


“Very fine!” replied Mr. Brill obediently. 

“I paid the synagogue bill for you — to save you 
trouble,” added the stone-mason, insinuatingly. 

But Mr. Brill was abstractedly studying the stone, 
and the mason moved off delicately. Mrs. Brill tried 
to spell out a few of the words, but, as there was no 
one to reprimand her, admitted her break-down. 

“ Read it to me, dear heart,” she whispered to 
Mr. Brill. 

“ I did read it you, my precious one,” he said, 
“wh$n Kitty sent it us. It says: — 

u i Salvina Brill, 

Whom God took suddenly, 

On May 29th, 1897, 

Aged twenty-five ; 

Loved and lamented by all 
For her perfect goodness.’ 

Then come the Hebrew letters.” 

“ Poor Salvina! ” sighed Mrs. Brill. “ She de¬ 
serves it, though she did spoil our lives for years.” 
He pressed her hand. “ I can’t tell you how 
frightened I was of her,” she went on. “ She al¬ 
most made me think I ought not to forgive you 
even on the Day of Atonement. But I don’t bear 
her malice, and I don’t grudge her what the stone 
says.” 

“ No, you mustn’t,” he said piously. “ Besides, 
everybody knows one never puts the whole truth 
on tombstones.” 


VIII 


SATAN MEKATRIG 









VIII 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


“ Suffer not the evil imagination to have dominion over us .... 
deliver me from the destructive Satan." — Morning Prayer. 

Without, the air was hot, heavy and oppressive; 
squadrons of dark clouds had rolled up rapidly from 
the rim of the horizon, and threatened each instant 
to shake heaven and earth with their artillery. But 
within the little synagogue of the “ Congregation of 
Love and Mercy,” though it was crowded to suffoca¬ 
tion, not a window was open. The worshippers, 
arrayed in their Sabbath finery, were too intent on 
following the quaint monotonous sing-song of the 
Cantor reading the Law to have much attention left 
for physical discomfort. They thought of their per¬ 
spiring brows and their moist undergarments just 
about as little as they thought of the meaning of the 
Hebrew words the reader was droning. Though the 
language was perfectly intelligible to them, yet their 
consciousness was chiefly and agreeably occupied 
with its musical accentuation, their piety being so 
interwoven with these beloved and familiar material 
elements as hardly to be separable therefrom. Perspi- 
345 


346 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


ration, too, had come to seem almost an ingredient of 
piety on great synagogal occasions. Frequent expe¬ 
rience had linked the two, as the poor opera-goer 
associates Patti with crushes. And the present was 
a great occasion. It was only an ordinary Sabbath 
afternoon service, but there was a feast of intellectual 
good things to follow. The great Rav Rotchinsky 
from Brody was to deliver a sermon; and so the 
swarthy, eager-eyed, curly-haired, shrewd-visaged 
cobblers, tailors, cigar-makers, peddlers, and beggars, 
who made up the congregation, had assembled in 
their fifties to enjoy the dialectical subtleties, the 
theological witticisms and the Talmudical anecdotes 
which the reputation of the Galician Maggid fore¬ 
shadowed. And not only did they come themselves; 
many brought their wives, who sat in their wigs and 
earrings behind a curtain which cut them off from 
the view of the men. The general ungainliness of 
their figures and the unattractiveness of their low¬ 
browed, high-cheekboned, and heavy-jawed faces 
would have made this pious precaution appear some¬ 
what superfluous to an outsider. The women, whose 
section of the large room thus converted into a place 
of worship was much smaller than the men’s, were 
even more closely packed on their narrow benches. 
Little wonder, therefore, that just as a member of 
the congregation was intoning from the central plat¬ 
form the blessing which closes the reading of the 
Law, a woman disturbed her neighbours by fainting. 


SATAJV MEKATRIG 


347 


She was carried out into the open air, though not 
without a good deal of bustle, which invoked indig¬ 
nant remonstrances in the Judisch-Deutsch jargon, of 
“ Hush, little women ! ” from the male worshippers, 
unconscious of the cause. The beadle went behind 
the curtain, and, fearing new disturbances, tried to 
open the window at the back of the little room, to let 
in some air from the back-yard on which it abutted. 
The sash was, however, too inert from a long season 
of sloth to move even in its own groove, and so the 
beadle elbowed his way back into the masculine de¬ 
partment, and by much tugging at a cord effected a 
small slit between a dusty skylight and the ceiling, 
neglecting the grumblings of the men immediately 
beneath. 

Hardly had he done so, when all the heavy shad¬ 
ows that lay in the corners of the synagogue, all the 
glooms that the storm-clouds cast upon the day, and 
that the grimy, cobwebbed windows multiplied, were 
sent flying off by a fierce flash of lightning that bathed 
in a sea of fire the dingy benches, the smeared walls, 
the dingily curtained Ark, the serried rows of swarthy 
faces. Almost on the heels of the lightning came 
the thunder — that vast, instantaneous crash which 
denotes that the electric cloud is low. 

The service was momentarily interrupted ; the con¬ 
gregation was on its feet; and from all parts rose 
the Hebrew blessing, “Blessed art thou, O Lord, 
performing the work of the Creation; ” followed, as 


348 


SATAJV MEKA TRIG 


the thunder followed the lightning, by the sonorous 
“ Blessed art thou, O Lord, whose power and might 
fill the Universe.” Then the congregation, led by 
the great Rav Rotchinsky, to whose venerable 
thought-lined face, surmounted by its black cap, all 
eyes had instinctively turned, sat down again, feel¬ 
ing safe. The blessing was intended to mean, and 
meant no more than, a reverential acknowledgment 
of the majesty of the Creator revealed in elemental 
phenomena; but human nature, struggling amid the 
terrors and awfulness of the Universe, is always be¬ 
low its creed, and scarce one but felt the prayer a 
talisman. A moment afterward all rose again, as 
Moshe Grinwitz, wrapped in his Talith, or praying- 
shawl, prepared to descend from the Al Memoir or 
central platform, bearing in his arms the Scroll of 
the Law, which had just been reverentially wrapped 
in its bandages, and devoutly covered with its em¬ 
broidered mantle and lovingly decorated with its 
ornamental bells and pointer. 

Now, as Moshd Grinwitz stood on the Al Mentor 
with his sacred burden, another terrible flash of 
lightning and appalling crash of thunder startled the 
worshippers. And Moshe’s arms were nervously 
agitated, and a frightful thought came into his head. 
Suppose he should drop the Holy Scroll! As this 
dreadful possibility occurred to him he trembled still 
more. The Sepher Torah is to the Jew at once the 
most precious and the most sacred of possessions, 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


349 


and in the eyes of the “ Congregation of Love and 
Mercy ” their Sep her Torah was, if possible, invested 
with a still higher preciousness and sanctity, because 
they had only one. They were too poor to afford 
luxuries; and so this single Scroll was the very sym¬ 
bol and seal of their brotherhood; in it lay the very 
possibility of their existence as a congregation. Not 
that it would be rendered “ Pasul” imperfect and 
invalid, by being dropped; the fall could not erase 
any of the letters so carefully written on the parch¬ 
ment ; but the calamity would be none the less awful 
and ominous. Every person present would have to 
abstain for a day from all food and drink, in sign of 
solemn grief. Moshe felt that if the idea that had 
flitted across his brain were to be realized, he would 
never have the courage to look his pious wife in the 
face after such passive profanity. The congregation, 
too, which honoured him, and which now waited to 
press devout kisses on the mantle of the Scroll, on 
its passage to the Ark—he could not but be degraded 
in its eyes by so negligent a performance of a duty 
which was a coveted privilege. All these thoughts, 
which were instinctively felt, rather than clearly con¬ 
ceived, caused Moshe Grinwitz to clasp the Sacred 
Scroll, which reached a little above his head, tightly 
to his breast. Feeling secure from the peril of drop¬ 
ping it, he made a step forward, but the bells jangled 
weirdly to his ears, and when he came to the two steps 
tvhich led down from the platform, a horrible forebod- 


350 


SA TAN MENA TRIG 


ing overcame him that he would stumble and fall in 
the descent. He stepped down one of the steps with 
morbid care, but lo! the feeling that no power on 
earth could prevent his falling gained tenfold in in¬ 
tensity. An indefinable presentiment of evil was 
upon him; the air was charged with some awful an<J 
maleficent influence, of which the convulsion of na¬ 
ture seemed a fit harbinger. And now his sensations 
became more horrible. The conviction of the im¬ 
pending catastrophe changed into a desire to take 
an active part in it, to have it done with and over. 
His arms itched to loose their hold of the Sepher 
Torah. Oh ! if he could only dash the thing to the 
ground, nay, stamp upon it, uttering fearful blas¬ 
phemies, and shake off this dark cloud that seemed 
to close round and suffocate him. A last shred of 
will, of sanity, wrestled with his wild wishes. The 
perspiration poured in streams down his forehead. 
It was but a moment since he had taken the Holy 
Scroll into his arms; but it seemed ages ago. 

His foot hovered between the first and second 
step, when a strange thing happened. Straight 
through the narrow slit opened in the skylight came 
a swift white arrow of flame, so dazzling that the 
awed worshippers closed their eyes; then a long suc¬ 
cession of terrific peals shook the room as with de¬ 
moniac laughter, and when the congregants came to 
their senses and opened their eyes they saw Moshe 
Grinwitz sitting dazed upon the steps of the Al 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


351 


Mentor , his hands tightly grasping the ends of his 
praying-shawl, while the Sepher Torah lay in the 
dust of the floor. 

For a moment the shock was such that no one 
could speak or move. There was an awful, breath¬ 
less silence, broken only by the mad patter of the 
rain on the roof and the windows. The floodgates 
of heaven were opened at last, and through the fatal 
slit a very cascade of water seemed to descend. Au¬ 
tomatically the beadle rushed to the cord and pulled 
the window to. His action broke the spell, and a 
dozen men, their swarthy faces darker with concern, 
rushed to raise up the prostrate Scroll, while a hub¬ 
bub of broken ejaculations rose from every side. 

But ere a hand could reach it, Moshe Grinwitz 
had darted forward and seized the precious object. 
“ No, no,” he cried, in the jargon which was the 
common language of all present. “ What do you 
want ? The mitzvah (good deed) is mine. I alone 
must carry it.” He shouldered it anew. 

“ Kiss it, at least,” cried the great Rav Rotchinsky 
in a hoarse, shocked whisper. 

“ Kiss it ? ” cried Moshe Grinwitz, with a sneering 
laugh. “What! with my wife in synagogue ! Isn’t 
it enough that I embrace it ? ” Then, without giving 
his hearers time to grasp the profanity of his words, 
he went on : “ Ah, now I can carry thee easily. I 
can hold thee, and yet breathe freely. See ! ” And 
he held out the Scroll lengthwise, showing the gilded 


352 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


metal chain and the pointer and the bells contorted 
by the lightning. “ I didn’t hurt thee; God hurt 
thee,” he said, addressing the Scroll. With a quick 
jerk of the hand he drew off the mantle and showed 
.the parchment blackened and disfigured. 

A groan burst from some; others looked on in 
dazed silence. The pecuniary loss, added to the 
manifestation of Divine wrath, overwhelmed them. 
“Thou hast no soul now to struggle out of my 
hands,” went on Moshe Grinwitz contemptuously. 
“ Look ! ” he added suddenly : “ The lightning has 

gone back to hell again! ” The men nearest him 
shuddered, and gazed down at the point on the floor 
toward which he was inclining the extremity of the 
Scroll. The wood was charred, and a small hole re¬ 
vealed the path the electric current had taken. As 
they looked in awestruck silence, a loud wailing burst 
forth from behind the curtain. The ill-omened news 
of the destruction of the Sepher Torah had reached 
the women, and their Oriental natures found relief in 
profuse lamentation. “ Smell! smell! ” cried Moshe 
Grinwitz, sniffing the sulphurous air with open de¬ 
light. 

“ Woe ! woe ! ” wailed the women. “ Woe has 
befallen us! ” 

“ Be silent, all! ” thundered the Maggid, suddenly 
recovering himself. “ Be silent, women ! Listen to 
my words. This is the vengeance of Heaven for the 
wickedness ye have committed in England. Since 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


353 


ye left your native country ye have forgotten your 
Judaism. There are men in this synagogue that 
have shaved the corners of their beard ; there are 
women who have not separated the Sabbath dough. 
Hear ye ! To-morrow shall be a fast day for you all. 
And you, Moshe Grinwitz, bench gomel — thank the 
Holy One, blessed be He, for saving your life.” 

“Not I,” said Moshe Grinwitz. “You talk non¬ 
sense. If the Holy One, blessed be He, saved my 
life, it was He that threatened it. My life was in 
no danger if He hadn’t interfered.” 

To hear blasphemies like this from the hitherto 
respectable and devout Moshe Grinwitz overwhelmed 
his hearers. But only for a moment. From a hun¬ 
dred throats there rose the angry cry, “ Epikouros! 
Epikouros! ” And mingled with this accusation of 
graceless scepticism there swelled a gathering tumult 
of “ His is the sin! Cast him out! He is the 
Jonah! He is the sinner!” The congregants had 
all risen long ago and menacing faces glared behind 
menacing faces. Some of more heady temperament 
were starting from their places. “ Moshe Grinwitz,” 
cried the great Rav, his voice dominating the din, 
“ are you mad ? ” 

“Now for the first time am I sane,” replied the 
man, his brow dark with defiance, his tall but usually 
stooping frame rigid, his narrow chest dilated, his 
head thrown back so that the somewhat rusty high 
hat he wore sloped backward half off his skull. It 


354 


SATAN MEKA TRIG 


was always a strange, arrestive face, was Moshe 
Grinwitz’s, with its sallow skin, its melancholy dark 
eyes, its aquiline nose, its hanging side-curls, and its 
full, fleshy mouth embowered in a forest of black 
beard and mustache; and now there was an un¬ 
canny light about it which made it almost weird. 
“ Now I see that the Socialists and Atheists are right, 
and that we trouble ourselves and tear out our very 
gall to read a Torah which the Overseer himself, if 
there is one, scornfully shrivels up and casts beneath 
our feet. Know ye what, brethren ? Let us all go 
to the Socialist Club and smoke our cigarettes. 
Otherwise are you mad ! ” As he uttered these im¬ 
pious words, another flash of flame lit up the crowded 
dusk with unearthly light; the building seemed to 
rock and crash ; the fingers of the storm beat heavily 
upon the windows. From the women’s compartment 
came low wails of fear: “Lord, have mercy! For¬ 
give us for our sins! It is the end of the world!” 
But from the men’s benches there arose an inco¬ 
herent cry like the growl of a tiger, and from all sides 
excited figures precipitated themselves upon the 
blasphemer. But Moshe Grinwitz laughed a wild, 
maniacal laugh, and whirled the sacred Scroll round 
and dashed the first comers against one another. But 
a muscular Lithuanian seized the extremity of the 
Scroll, and others hung on, and between them they 
wrested it from his grasp. Still he fought furiously, 
as if endowed with sinews of steel, and his irritated 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


355 


opponents, their faces bleeding and swollen, closed 
round him, forgetting that their object was but to 
expel him, and bent on doing him a mischief. An¬ 
other moment and it would have fared ill with the 
man, when a voice, whose tones startled all but Moshe 
Grinwitz, though they were spoken close to his ear, 
hissed in Yiddish: “ Well, if this is the way the 
members of the Congregation of Love and Mercy 
spend their Sabbath, methinks they had done as well 
to smoke cigarettes at the Socialist Club. What say 
ye, brethren ? ” These words, pregnant and deserved 
enough in themselves, were underlined by an accent 
of indescribable mockery, not bitter, but as gloating 
over the enjoyment of their folly. Involuntarily all 
turned their eyes to the speaker. 

Who was he? Where did he spring from, this 
black-coated, fur-capped, red-haired hunchback with 
the gigantic marble brow, the cold, keen, steely eyes 
that drew and enthralled the gazer, the handsome 
clean-shaven lips contorted with a sneer? None re¬ 
membered seeing him enter — none had seen him 
sitting at their side, or near them. He was not of 
their congregation, nor of their brotherhood, nor of 
any of their crafts. Yet as they looked at him the 
exclamations died away on their lips, their menacing 
hands fell to their sides, and a wave of vague, uneasy 
remembrance passed over all the men in the syna¬ 
gogue. There was not one that did not seem to 
know him; there was not one who could have told 


356 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


who he was, or when or where he had seen him 
before. Even the great Rav Rotchinsky, who had 
set foot on English soil but a fortnight ago, felt a 
stir of shadowy recollection within him; and his 
corrugated brow wrinkled itself still more in the 
search after definiteness. A deep and sudden silence 
possessed the synagogue; the very sobs of the un¬ 
seeing women were checked. Only the sough of the 
storm, the ceaseless plash of the torrent, went on as 
before. Without, the busy life of London pulsed, 
unchecked by the tempest; within, the little syna¬ 
gogue was given over to mystery and nameless awe. 

The sneering hunchback took the Holy Scroll from 
the nerveless hands of the Lithuanian, and waved 
it as in derision. “ Blasted ! harmless! ” he cried. 
“The great Name itself mocked by the elements! 
So this is what ye toil and sweat for — to store up 
gold that His words may be inscribed finely on choice 
parchment; and then this is how He laughs at your 
toil and your self-sacrifice. Listen to Him no more; 
give not up the seventh day to idleness when your 
Lord worketh His lightnings thereon. Blind your¬ 
selves no longer over old-fashioned pages, dusty and 
dreary. Rise up against Him and His law, for He 
is moved with mirth at your mummeries. He and 
His angels laugh at you — Heaven is merry with 
your folly. What hath He done for His chosen 
people for their centuries of anguish and martyr¬ 
dom ? It is for His plaything that He hath chosen 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


357 


you. He hath given you over into the hand of the 
spoiler; ye are a byword among nations; the fol¬ 
lowers of the victorious Christ spit in your faces. 
Here in England your lot is least hard; but even 
here ye eat your scanty bread with sorrow and 
travail. Sleep may rarely visit your eyes; your 
homes are noisome styes; your children perish 
around you; ye go down in sorrow to the grave. 
Rouse yourselves, and be free men. Waste your 
lives neither for God nor man. Or, if you will wor¬ 
ship, worship the Christ, whose ministers will pour 
gold upon you. Eat, drink, and be merry, for to¬ 
morrow ye die.” 

A charmed silence still hung over his auditors. 
Their resentment, their horror, was dead; a waft of 
fiery air seemed to blow over their souls, an intoxi¬ 
cating flush of evil thoughts held riot in their hearts. 
They felt their whole spirit move under the sway of 
the daring speaker, who now seemed to them merely 
to put into words thoughts long suppressed in their 
own hearts, but now rising into active consciousness. 
Yes, they had been fools: they would free them¬ 
selves, and quaff the wine of life before the Angel of 
Death, Azrael, spilled the goblet. Moshe Grinwitz’s 
melancholy eyes blazed with sympathetic ardour. 

“ Hush, miserable blasphemer ! ” faltered the great 
Rav Rotchinsky, who alone could find his tongue. 
“The guardian of Israel neither slumbereth nor 
sleepeth.” The hunchback wheeled round and cast 


358 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


a chilling glance at the venerable man. Then, smil¬ 
ing, “ The maidens of England are beautiful,” he 
said. “They are even fairer than the women of 
Brody.” 

The great Rav turned pale, but his eyes shone. 
He struck out feebly with his arms, as though beat¬ 
ing back some tempting vision. 

“ You and I have spoken together before, Rabbi,” 
said the hunchback. “ We shall speak again — about 
women, wine, and other things. Your beard is long 
and white, but many days of sunshine are still before 
you, and the darkness of the grave is afar.” 

The rabbi tried to mutter a prayer, but his lips 
only beat tremulously together. 

“Profane mocker,” he muttered at length, “go to 
thy work and thy wine and thy pleasure, if thou 
wouldst desecrate the sacred Sabbath-day ; but tempt 
not others to sin with thee. Begone; and may 
the Holy One, blessed be He, blast thee with His 
lightnings.” 

“The Holy One blasteth only that which is holy,” 
grimly rejoined the dwarfish stranger, exhibiting the 
Scroll, while a low sound of applause went up from 
the audience. “ Said I not, ye were a sport and a 
mockery unto Him ? Ye assemble in your multitude 
for prayer, and the vapour of your piety but prepares 
the air for the passage of His arrows. Ye adorn 
His Scroll with bells and chains, and the gilded 
metal but draws His lightnings.” 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


359 


He looked around the room and a cat-like gleam 
of triumph stole into his wonderful eyes as he noted 
the effect of his words. He paused, and again for a 
moment the tense, awful silence reigned, emphasized 
by the loud but decreasing patter of the rain. This 
time it was broken in a strange, unexpected fashion. 

“ Yisgadal f veyiskadash sJieme rabbo ,” rang out 
a clear, childish voice from the rear of the syna¬ 
gogue. A little orphan child, who had come to 
repeat the Kaddish y the Hebrew mourners’ un¬ 
questioning acknowledgment of the Supreme Good¬ 
ness, had fallen into a sleep, overcome by the heat, 
and had slept all through the storm. Awakening 
now amid a universal silence, the poor little fellow 
instinctively felt that the congregation was wait¬ 
ing for him to pronounce the prayer. Alone of 
the male worshippers he had neither seen the 
blaspheming hunchback nor listened to his words. 

The hunchback’s handsome face was distorted 
with a scowl; he stamped his broad splay-foot, 
but hearing no verbal interruption, the child, its 
eyes piously closed, continued its prayer — 

“In the world which He hath created . . . .” 

“The rain has ceased, brethren,” huskily whis¬ 
pered the hunchback, for his words seemed to stick 
in his throat. “ Come outside and I will tell you 
how to enjoy this world, for world-to-come there 
is none.” Not a figure stirred. The child’s treble 
went unfalteringly on. The stranger hurried tow- 


360 


SATAJV MEKATRIG 


ard the door. Arrived there, he looked back. 
Moshe Grinwitz alone followed him. He hurled 
the Scroll at the child’s head, but the lad just 
then took the three backward steps which accom¬ 
pany the conclusion of the prayer. The Scroll 
dashed itself against the wall; the stranger was 
gone and with him Moshe Grinwitz. A great 
wave of trembling passed through the length and 
breadth of the synagogue; the men drew long 
breaths, as if some heavy and sulphurous vapour 
had been dissipated from the atmosphere; the 
child lifted up with difficulty the battered Scroll, 
kissed it and handed it to his neighbour, who de¬ 
posited it reverently in the Ark; a dazzling burst 
of sunshine flooded the room from above, and 
transmuted the floating dust into the golden shafts 
of some celestial structure; the Cantor and the 
congregation continued the words of the service 
at the point interrupted, as though all the strange 
episode had been a dream. They did not speak 
or wonder among themselves at it; nor did the 
rabbi allude to it in the marvellous exhortation 
that succeeded the service, save at its close, when 
he reminded them that on the morrow they must 
observe a solemn fast. But ever afterward they 
shunned Moshe Grinwitz as a leper; for the sight 
of him recalled his companion in blasphemy, the 
atheist and socialist propagandist, who had in¬ 
sidiously crept into their midst, after perverting 


SATAN MEKA TRIG 


361 


and crazing their fellow as a preliminary; and the 
thought of the strange hunchback set their blood 
tingling and their brain surging with wild fancies 
and audacious thoughts. The tidings of their mis¬ 
fortune induced a few benevolent men to join in 
purchasing a new Scroll of the Law for them, and 
before the Feast of Consecration of this precious 
possession was well over, the once vivid images 
of that stormy and disgraceful scene were as 
shadows in the minds of men not unaccustomed 
to heated synagogal discussions, and not altogether 
strangers to synagogal affrays. 

a She will do him good and not evil all the days of her lifeT 
— Prov. xxxi. 12. 

As Moshe Grinwitz followed his new-found friend 
down the narrow windings that led to his own home, 
his whole being surrendered itself to the new de¬ 
licious freedom. The burst of sunshine that greeted 
him almost as soon as he crossed the threshold of 
the synagogue seemed to him to typify the new 
life that was to be his. He drew up his gaunt form 
to his full height, stiffened his curved shoulders, 
bent by much stooping over his machine, and ad¬ 
justed his high hat firmly on his head. It was not 
a restful, placid feeling that now possessed him; 
rather a busy ferment of ideas, a stirring of nerve 
currents, an accumulation of energy striving to dis¬ 
charge itself, a mercurial flowing of the blood. The 


362 


SA TAN MEKA TRIG 


weight of old life-long conceptions, nay, the burden 
of old learning, of which his store had been vast, 
was cast off. He did not know what he should do 
with the new life that tingled in his veins; he only 
felt alive in every pore. 

“Ha! brother!” he shouted to the hunchback, 
who was hurrying on before. “These fools in the 
synagogue would do better to come out and enjoy 
the fine weather.” 

“ They breathe the musty air to offer it up as a 
sweet incense,” responded the dwarf, slackening his 
steps to allow his companion to come up with him. 

Their short walk was diversified by quite a number 
of incidents. A driver lashed his horse so savagely 
that the animal bolted; two children walking hand 
in hand suddenly began to fight; a foreign-looking, 
richly dressed gentleman, half-drunk, staggered along. 
Moshe felt it a shame that one wealthy man should 
wear a heavy gold chain, which would support a 
poor family for a month; but ere his own tempta¬ 
tion had gathered to a head, the poor gentleman 
was felled by a sudden blow, and a respectably clad 
figure vanished down an alley with the coveted spoil. 
Moshe felt glad, and made no attempt to assist the 
victim, and his attention was immediately attracted 
by some boys, who commenced to tie a cracker to 
a cat’s tail. Occupied by all these observations, 
Moshe suddenly noted with a start that they had 
reached the house in which he lived. His com- 


SATAN ME KA TRIG 


363 


panion had already entered the passage, for the 
door was always ajar, and Moshe had the impression 
that it was very kind of his new friend to accept 
his invitation to visit him. He felt very pleased, 
and followed him into the passage, but no sooner 
had he done so than an impalpable cloud of distrust 
seemed to settle upon him. The house was a tall, 
old-fashioned and grimy structure, which had been 
fine, and even stately, a century before, but which 
now sheltered a dozen families, mainly Jewish. 
Moshe Grinwitz’s one room was situated at the very 
top, its walls forming part of the roof. Every flight 
of stairs Moshe went up, his spirit grew darker and 
darker, as if absorbing the darkness that hung around 
the cobwebbed, massive balustrades, upon which no 
direct ray of sunlight ever fell ; and by the time he 
had reached the dusky landing outside his own door 
the vague uneasiness had changed into a horrible 
definite conception ; a memory had come back upon 
him which set his heart thumping guiltily and anx¬ 
iously in his bosom. His wife! His pure, virtuous, 
God-fearing wife ! How was he to make her under¬ 
stand ? But immediately a thought came, by which 
the burden of shame and anxiety was half lifted. 
His wife was not at home; she would still be in the 
Synagogue of Love and Mercy, where, mercifully 
blinded by the curtain, she, perhaps, was still igno¬ 
rant of the part he had played. He turned suddenly 
to his companion, and caught the vanishing traces 


364 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


of an ugly scowl wrinkling the high white forehead 
under the fur cap. The hunchback’s hair burnt 
like fire on the background of the gloom; his eyes 
flashed lightning. 

“ Probably my wife is in the synagogue,” said 
Moshe. “ If so, she has the key, and we can’t get 
in.” 

“ The key matters little,” hissed the hunchback. 
“ But you must first tear down this thing.” 

Moshe’s eyes followed in wonder the direction of 
his companion’s long, white forefinger, and rested on 
the Mezuzah , where, in a tin case, the holy verses 
and the Name hung upon the door-post. 

“ Tear it down ? ” repeated Moshe. 

“ Tear it down ! ” replied the hunchback. “ Never 
will I enter a home where this superstitious gew-gaw 
is allowed to decorate the door.” 

Moshe hesitated ; the thought of what his wife 
would say, again welled up strongly within him; all 
his new impious daring seemed to be melting away. 
But a mocking glance from the cruel eyes thrilled 
through him. He put his hand on the Mezuzah , 
then the unbroken habit of years asserted its sway, 
and he removed the finger which had lain on the 
Name and kissed it. Instantly another semi-trans¬ 
formation of his thoughts took place; he longed to 
take the hunchback by the throat. But it was an 
impotent longing, for when a low hiss of intense 
scorn and wrath was breathed from the clenched 


SATAJV MEKATRIG 


365 


lips of his companion, he made a violent tug at the 
firmly fastened Mezuzah . It was half-loosed from 
the woodwork when, from behind the door, there 
issued in clear, womanly tones the solemn Hebrew 
words: — 

“ Blessed is the man that walketh not in the council 
of the ungodly , nor standeth in the zvay of sinners , nor 
sittetli in the seat of the scornful 

It was Rebecca Grinwitz commencing the Book of 
Psalms, which she read through every Sabbath 
afternoon. 

A violent shudder agitated Moshe Grinwitz’s 
frame; he paused with his hand on the Mezuzah , 
struggled with himself awhile, then kissed his finger 
again, and, turning to defy the scorn of his com¬ 
panion, saw that he had slipped noiselessly down¬ 
stairs. A sob of intense relief burst from Moshe’s 
lips. 

“ Rivkoly, Rivkoly ! ” he cried hysterically, beating 
at the door; and in another moment he was folded 
in the quiet haven of his wife’s arms. 

“ Who told thee it was I ? ” said Rebecca, after a 
moment of delicious happiness for both. “ I told 
them not to alarm thee, nor to spoil thy enjoyment 
of the sermon, because I knew thou wouldst be un¬ 
easy and be wanting to leave the synagogue if thou 
knewest I had fainted.” 

“No one told me thou hadst fainted!” Moshe 
exclaimed, instantly forgetting his own perturbation. 


366 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


“ And yet thou didst guess it! ” said Rebecca, a 
happy little smile dimpling her pale cheek, “ and 
came away after me.” Then, her face clouding, 
“The Satan Mekatrig has tempted us both away 
from synagogue,” she said, “and even when I com¬ 
mence to say Tehillim (Psalms) at home, he inter¬ 
rupts me by sending me my darling husband.” 

Moshe kissed her in acknowledgment of the com¬ 
plimentary termination of a sentence begun with 
unquestionable gloom. “ But what made my Riv- 
koly faint?” he asked, glad, on reflection, that his 
wife’s misconception obviated the necessity of ex¬ 
planations. “ They ought to have opened the win¬ 
dow at the back of the women’s room.” 

Rebecca shuddered. “ God forbid ! ” she cried. 
“ It wasn’t the heat — it was that.” Her eyes stared 
a moment at some unseen vision. 

“What?” cried Moshe, catching the contagion of 
horror. 

“ He would have come in,” she said. 

“ Who would have come in ? ” he gasped. 

“The Satan Mekatrig” replied his wife. “He 
was outside, and he glared at me as if I prevented 
his coming in.” 

A nervous silence followed. Moshe’s heart beat 
painfully. Then he laughed with ghastly merriment. 
“ Thou didst fall asleep from the heat,” he said, “ and 
hadst an evil dream.” 

“ No, no,” protested his wife earnestly. “As sure 


SATAN' MEKATRIG 


367 


as I stand here, no ! I was looking into my Chitmosh 
(Pentateuch), following the reading of the Torah , and 
all at once I felt something plucking my eyes off my 
book and turning my head to look through the win¬ 
dow immediately behind me. I wondered what 
Satan Mekatrig was distracting my thoughts from 
the service. For a long time I resisted, but when 
the reading ceased for a moment the temptation 
overcame me and I turned and saw him.” 

“ How looked he ? ” Moshe asked in a whisper 
that strove in vain not to be one. 

“ Do not ask me,” Rebecca replied, with another 
shudder. “A little crooked demon with red hair, 
and a fur cap, and a white forehead, and baleful 
eyes, and a cock’s talons for toes.” 

Again Moshe laughed, a strange, hollow laugh. 
“Little fool!” he said, “I know the man. He is 
only a brother-Jew — a poor cutter or cigar-maker 
who laughs at Yiddishkeit (Judaism), because he has 
no wife like mine to show him the heavenly light. 
Why, didst thou not see him afterward ? But no, 
thou must have been gone by the time he came 
inside.” 

“What I saw was no man,” returned Rebecca, 
looking at him sternly. “No earthly being could 
have stopped my heart with his glances. It was the 
Satan Mekatrig himself, who goeth to and fro on 
the earth, and walketh up and down in it. I must 
have been having wicked thoughts indeed this Sab- 


368 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


bath, thinking of my new dress, for my Sabbath 
Angel to have deserted me, and to let the Disturber 
and the Tempter assail me unchecked.” The poor, 
conscience-stricken woman burst into tears. 

“ My Rivkoly have wicked thoughts ! ” said Moshe 
incredulously, as he smoothed her cheek. “ If my 
Rivkoly puts on a new dress in honour of the Sab¬ 
bath, is not the dear God pleased ? Why, where is' 
thy new dress ? ” 

“ I have changed it for an old one,” she sobbed. 
“ I do not want to see the demon again.” 

“ The Satan Mekatrig has no real existence, I tell 
thee,” said Moshe, irritated. “ He only means our 
own inward thoughts, that distract us in the perform¬ 
ance of the precepts; our own inward temptations to 
go astray after our eyes and after our hearts.” 

“ Moshe ! ” Rebecca exclaimed in a shocked tone, 
“ have I married an Epikouros after all ? My father, 
the Rav, peace be unto him, always said thou hadst 
the makings of one — that thou didst ask too many 
questions.” 

“ Well, whether there is a Satan or not,” retorted 
her husband, “ thou couldst not have seen him; for 
the person thou describest is the man I tell thee 
of.” 

“And thou keepest company with such a man,” 
she answered; “ a man who scoffs at Yiddishkeit! 
May the Holy One, blessed be He, forgive thee! 
Now I know why we have no children, no son to say 


SATAJV MEKA TRIG 


369 


Kaddish after us.” And Rebecca wept bitterly — 
for the children she did not possess. 

Their common cause of grief coming thus unex¬ 
pectedly into their consciousness softened them 
toward one another and dispelled the gathering irri¬ 
tation. Both had a melancholy vision of themselves 
stretched out stiff and stark in their shrouds, with no 
filial Kaddish breaking in upon and gladdening their 
ears. O if their souls should be doomed to Purga¬ 
tory, with no son’s prayers to release them! Very 
soon they were sitting hand in hand, reading to¬ 
gether the interrupted Psalms. 

And a deep peace fell upon Moshe Grinwitz. So 
the immortal allegorist, John Bunyan, must have felt 
when the mad longing to utter blasphemies and ob¬ 
scenities from the pulpit was stifled; and when he 
felt his soul once more in harmony with the Spirit of 
Good. So feel all men who have wrestled with a 
Being in the darkness and prevailed. 

They were a curious contrast — the tall, sallow, 
stooping, black-bearded man, and the small, keen¬ 
eyed, plump, pleasant-looking, if not pretty woman, 
in her dark wig and striped cotton dress, and as 
they sat, steadily going through the whole collection 
of Psalms to a strange, melancholy tune, fraught with 
a haunting and indescribable pathos, the shadows of 
twilight gathered unnoticed about the attic, which 
was their all in all of home. The iron bed, the 
wooden chairs, the gilt-framed Mizrach began to lose 


370 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


their outlines in the dimness. The Psalms were fin¬ 
ished at last, and then the husband and wife sat, still 
hand in hand, talking of their plans for the coming 
week. For once neither spoke of going to evening 
service at the Synagogue of Love and Mercy, and 
when a silver ray of moonlight lay broad across the 
counterpane, and Rebecca Grinwitz, peering into the 
quiet sky that overhung the turbid alley, announced 
that three stars were visible, the devout couple turned 
their faces to the east and sang the hymns that usher 
out the Sabbath. 

And when the evening prayer was over Rebecca 
produced from the cupboard the plainly cut goblet of 
raisin wine, and the metal wine-cup, the green 
twisted waxlight, and the spice-box, wherewith to 
perform the beautiful symbolical ceremony of the 
Havdalah , welcoming in the days of work, the six 
long days of dreary drudgery, with cheerful resigna¬ 
tion to the will of the Maker of all things — of the 
Sabbath and the Day of Work, the Light and the 
Shadow, the Good and the Evil, blent into one divine 
harmony by His inscrutable Wisdom and Love. 

Moshd filled the cup with raisin wine, and, holding 
it with his right hand, chanted a short majestic 
Hebrew poem, whereof the burden was : — 

“ Lo ! God is my salvation ; I will trust, and I will 
not be afraid. Be with us light and joy, gladness 
and honour.” Then blessing the King of the Uni¬ 
verse, who had created the fruit of the Vine, he 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


371 


placed the cup on the table and took up the spices, 
uttering a blessing over them as he did so. Then 
having smelled the spice-box, he passed it on to his 
wife and spread out his hands toward the light of 
the spiral wax taper, reciting solemnly : “ Blessed be 
Thou, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who 
createst the Light of the Fire.” And then looking 
down at the Shade made by his bent fingers, he took 
up the wine-cup again, and chanted, with especial 
fervour, and with a renewed sense of the sanctities 
and sweet tranquillities of religion: “ Blessed be 
Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, who 
makest a distinction between the Holy and the non- 
Holy, between Light and Darkness.” 

“As for that night , let darkness seize upon it A —Job iii. 6. 

It was Kol Nidre night, the commencement of the 
great White Fast, the Day of Atonement. Through¬ 
out the Jewish quarter there was an air of subdued 
excitement. The synagogues had just emptied them¬ 
selves and everywhere men and women, yet under 
the solemn shadow of passionate prayer, were meet¬ 
ing and exchanging the wish that they might weather 
the fast safely. The night was dark and starless, as 
if Nature partook of the universal mournfulness. 

Solitary, though amidst a crowd, a slight, painfully 
thin woman shuffled wearily along, her feet clad in 
the slippers which befitted the occasion, her head 


372 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


bent, her worn cheek furrowed with still-falling tears. 
They were not the last dribblets of an exhausted 
emotion, not the meaningless, watery expression of 
over-excited sensibility. They were real, salt, bitter 
tears born of an intense sorrow. The long, harassing 
service, with its untiring demands upon the most ex¬ 
alted and the most poignant emotions, would have 
been a blessing if it had dulled her capacity for an¬ 
guish. But it had not. Poor Rebecca Grinwitz was 
still thinking of her husband. 

It was of him she thought, even when the minis¬ 
ters, in their long white cerements, were pouring forth 
their souls in passionate vocalization, now rising to a 
wail, now breaking to a sob, now sinking to a dread 
whisper; it was of him she thought when the weep¬ 
ing worshippers, covered from head to foot in their 
praying-shawls, rocked to and fro in a frenzy of grief, 
and battered the gates of Heaven with fiery lyrics; 
it was of him she thought when she beat her breast 
with her clenched fist as she made the confession of 
sin and clamoured for forgiveness. Sins enough she 
knew she 'had — but his sin ! Ah ! God, his sin ! 

For Moshe had gone from bad to worse. He re¬ 
fused to reenter the synagogue where he had been so 
roughly handled. His speech became more and 
more profane. He said no more prayers; wore no 
more phylacteries. Her peaceful h^me-life wrecked, 
her reliance on her husband gone, the poor wife clung 
to him, still hoping on. At times she did not believe 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


373 


him sane. Gradually rumours of his mad behaviour 
on the Sabbath on which she had fainted reached her 
ears, and remembering that his strangeness had be¬ 
gun from the Sunday morning following that delicious 
afternoon of common Psalm-saying, she was often in¬ 
clined to put it all down to mental aberration. But 
then his talk — so clever, if so blasphemous ; bristling 
with little pointed epigrams and maxims such as she 
had never before heard from him or any one else. 
He was full of new ideas, too, on politics and the social 
system and other unpractical topics, picturing endless 
potentialities of wealth and happiness for the labourer. 
Meantime his wages had fallen by a third, owing 
to the loss of his former place, his master having been 
the president of the Congregation of Love and Mercy. 
What wonder, therefore, if Moshe Grinwitz intruded 
upon all his wife’s thoughts — devotional or worldly ? 
In a very real sense he had become her Satan Mekatrig. 

Up till to-night she had gone on hoping. For 
when the great White Fast comes round, a mighty 
wave as of some subtle magnetism passes through the 
world of Jews. Men and women who have not 
obeyed one precept of Judaism for a whole year sud¬ 
denly awake to a remembrance of the faith in which 
they were born, and hasten to fast and pray, and abase 
themselves before the Throne of Mercy. The long- 
drawn, tremulous, stirring notes of the trumpet that 
ushers in the New Year, seem to rally and gather to¬ 
gether the dispersed of Israel from every region of 


374 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


the underworld of unfaith and to mass them beneath 
the cope of heaven. And to-night surely the newly 
rooted nightshade of doubt would wither away in her 
husband’s bosom. Surely this one link still held him to 
the religion of his fathers; and this one link would 
redeem him and yet save his soul from the everlast¬ 
ing tortures of the damned. But this last hope had 
been doomed to disappointment. Utterly unmoved 
by all the olden sanctities of the Days of Judgment 
that initiate the New Year, the miserable man showed 
no signs of remorse when the more awful terrors of 
the Day of Atonement drew near — the last day of 
grace for the sinner, the day on which the Divine 
Sentence is sealed irrevocably. And so the wretched 
woman had gone to the synagogue alone. 

Reaching home, she toiled up the black staircase 
and turned the handle of the door. As she threw 
open the door she uttered a cry. She saw nothing 
before her but a gigantic shadow, flickering gro¬ 
tesquely on the sloping walls and the slip of ceiling. 
It must be her own shadow, for other living occupant 
of the room she could see none. Where was her 
husband ? Whither had he gone ? Why had he 
recklessly left the door unlocked ? 

She looked toward the table gleaming weirdly 
with its white tablecloth ; the tall wax Yom Kippur 
Candle, specially lit on the eve of the solemn fast 
and intended to burn far on into the next day, had 
all but guttered away, and the flame was quivering 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


375 


unsteadily under the influence of a draught coming 
from the carelessly opened window. Rebecca shiv¬ 
ered from head to foot; a dread presentiment of 
evil shook her soul. For years the Candle had 
burnt steadily, and her life also had been steady 
and undisturbed. Alas! it needed not the omen 
of the Yom Kippur Candle to presage woe. 

“ May the dear God have mercy on me! ” she 
exclaimed, bursting into fresh tears. Hardly had 
she uttered the words when a monstrous black cat, 
with baleful green eyes, dashed from under the table, 
sprang upon the window-sill, and disappeared into 
the darkness, uttering a melancholy howl. Almost 
frantic with terror, the poor woman dragged her¬ 
self to the window and closed it with a bang, but 
ere the sash had touched the sill, something narrow 
and white had flashed from the room through the 
gap, and the reverberations made in the silent garret 
by the shock of the violently closed window were 
prolonged in mocking laughter. 

“ Well thrown, Rav Moshe ! ” said a grating voice. 
“ Now that you have at last conquered your rever¬ 
ence for a bit of tin and a morsel of parchment, I 
will honour your mansion with my presence.” 

Instantly Rebecca felt a wild longing to join in 
the merriment and to laugh away her fears; but, 
muttering a potent talismanic verse, she turned and 
faced her husband and his guest. Instinct had 
not deceived her—the new-comer was the hunch- 


376 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


back of that fatal Sabbath. This time she did not 
faint 

“ A strange hour and occasion to bring a visitor, 
Moshe,” she said sternly, her face growing even 
more rigid and white as she caught the nicotian and 
alcoholic reek of the two men’s breaths. 

“Your good Frau is not over-polite,” said the 
visitor. “But it’s Yom Kippur , and so I suppose 
she feels she must tell the truth.” 

“ I brought him, Rivkoly, to convince thee what 
a fool thou wast to assert that thou hadst seen — 
but / mustn’t be impolite,” he broke off, with a 
coarse laugh. “There’s no call for me to tell the 
truth because it’s Yom Kippur. Down at the Club 
we celebrated the occasion by something better than 
truth — a jolly spread! And our good friend here 
actually stood a bottle of champagne! Cham¬ 
pagne, Rivkoly! Think of it! Real, live cham¬ 
pagne, like that which fizzes and sparkles on the 
table of the Lord Mayor. Oh, he’s a jolly good 
fellow ! and so said all of us, too. And yet thou 
sayest he isn’t a fellow at all.” 

A drunken leer overspread his sallow face, and 
was rendered more ghastly by the flame leaping up 
from the expiring candle. 

“ Roshah, sinner!” thundered the woman. Then 
looking straight into the cruel eyes of the hunchback, 
her wan face shining with the stress of a great emo¬ 
tion, her meagre form convulsed with fury, “ Avaunt, 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


377 


Satan Mekatrig ! ” she screamed. “ Get thee down 
from my house — get thee down. In God’s name, 
get thee down — to hell.” 

Even the brazen-faced hunchback trembled before 
her passion; but he grasped his friend’s hot hand in 
his long, nervous fingers, and seemed to draw cour¬ 
age from the contact. 

“ If I go, I take your husband ! ” he hissed, his 
great eyes blazing in turn. “ He will leave me no 
more. Send me away, if you will.” 

“Yes, thou must not send my friend away like 
this,” hiccoughed Moshe Grinwitz. “ Come, make 
him welcome, like the good wife thou wast wont 
to be.” 

Rebecca uttered a terrible cry, and, cowering 
down on the ground, rocked herself to and fro. 

The drunkard appeared moved. “ Get up, Riv- 
koly,” he said, with a tremour in his tones. “To 
see thee one would think thou wast sitting Shivah 
over my corpse.” He put out his hand as if to 
raise her up. 

“ Back! ” she screamed, writhing from his grasp. 
“ Touch me not; no longer am I wife of thine.” 

“ Hear you that, man ? ” said the hunchback 
eagerly. “You are free. I am here as a witness. 
Think of it; you are free.” 

“ Yes, I am free,” repeated Moshe, with a horrible, 
joyous exultation on his sickly visage. The gigantic 
shadow of himself that bent over him, cast by the 


378 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


dying flame of the Yom Kippur Candle, seemed to 
dance in grim triumph, his long side-curls dangling 
in the spectral image like barbaric ornaments in the 
ears of a savage, while the unshapely, fantastic 
shadow of the hunchback seemed to nod its head 
in applause. Then, as the flame leaped up in an 
irregular jet, the distorted shadow of the Tempter 
intertwined itself in a ghastly embrace with her own. 
With frozen blood and stifled breath the tortured 
woman turned away, and, as her eyes fell upon the 
many-cracked looking-glass which adorned the man¬ 
telpiece, she saw, or her overwrought fancy seemed 
to see — her husband’s dead face, wreathed with a 
slavering serpent in the place of the phylacteries 
he had ceased to wear, and surrounded by endless 
perspectives of mocking marble-browed visages, with 
fiery snakes for hair and live coals for eyes. 

She felt her senses slipping away from her grasp, 
but she struggled wildly against the heavy vapour that 
seemed to choke her. “ Moshe! ” she shrieked, in mad, 
involuntary appeal for help, as she clutched the mantel 
and closed her eyes to shut out the hideous vision. 

“ I am no longer thy husband,” tauntingly replied 
the man. “ I may not touch thee.” 

“Hear you that, woman?” came the sardonic voice 
of the hunchback. “You are free. I am here as a 
witness.” 

“ I am here as a witness,” a thousand mocking 
voices seemed to hiss in echoed sibilance. 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


379 


A terrible silence followed. At last she turned her 
white shrunken face, which the contrast of the jet- 
black wig rendered weird and death-like, toward the 
man who had been her husband, and looked long and 
slowly, yearningly yet reproachfully, into his blood¬ 
shot eyes. 

Again a great wave of agitation shook the man 
from head to foot. 

“ Don’t look at me like that, Rivkoly,” he almost 
screamed. “ I won’t have it. I won’t see thee. 
Curse that candle ! Why does it flicker on eternally 
and not blot thee from my sight?” He puffed 
violently at the tenacious flame and a pall fell over 
the room. But the next instant the light leaped up 
higher than ever. 

“ Moshe! ” Rebecca shrieked in wild dismay. 
“ Dost thou forget it is Kol Nidrt night ? How canst 
thou dare to blow out a light ? Besides, it is the Yom 
Kippur Candle — it is our life and happiness for the 
New Year. If you blow it out, I swear, by my soul 
and the great Name, that you shall never look upon 
my face again.” 

“ It is because I do not wish to see thy face that 
I will blow it out,” he replied, laughing hysterically. 

“ No, no ! ” she pleaded. “ I will go away rather. 
It is nearly dead of itself; let it die.” 

“ No! It takes too long dying; ’tis like thy father, 
the Rav, who had the corpse-watchers so long in 
attendance that one died himself,” said Moshd Grin- 


380 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


witz with horrible laughter. “ I will kill it! ” And 
bending down low over the broad socket of the 
candlestick, so that his head loomed gigantic on the 
ceiling, he silenced forever the restless tongue of 
fire. 

Immediately a thick blackness, as of the grave, 
settled upon the chamber. Hollow echoes of the 
blasphemer’s laughter rang and resounded on every 
side. Myriads of dreadful faces shaped themselves 
out of the gloom, and mowed and gibbered at the 
woman. At the window, the green, baleful eyes of 
the black cat glared with phosphorescent light. A 
wreath of fiery serpents twisted themselves in fiendish 
contortions, shedding lurid radiance upon the cruel 
marble brow they garlanded. An unspeakable Eeri¬ 
ness, an unnameable Unholiness, floated with far- 
sweeping, rustling pinions through the Darkness. 

With stifling throat that strove in vain to shriek, 
the woman dashed out through the well-known door, 
fled wildly down the stairs, pursued at every step by 
the sardonic merriment, met at every corner by the 
gibbering shapes — fled on, dashing through the 
heavy, ever-open street door into the fresher air of 
the night — on, instinctively on, through the almost 
deserted streets and alleys, where only the vile gin- 
houses gleamed with life — on, without pause or rest, 
till she fell exhausted upon the dusty door-step of the 
Synagogue of Love and Mercy. 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


381 


“ All Israel have a portion in the world to come" — Ethics of 
the Fathers. 

The aged keeper of the synagogue rushed out at 
the noise. 

“Save me! For God’s sake, save me, Reb Yitz- 
chok! ” cried the fallen figure. “ Save me from the 
Satan Mekatrig ! I have no home — no husband — 
any more ! Take me in ! ” 

“Take you in ? ” said Reb Yitzchok pityingly, for 
he dimly guessed something of her story. “ Where 
can I take you in? You know my wife and I are 
allowed but one tiny room here.” 

“ Take me in ! ” repeated the woman. “ I will pass 
the night in the synagogue. I must pray for my 
husband’s soul, for he has no son to pray for him. 
Let me come in! Save me from the Satan Meka¬ 
trig! ” 

“ You would certainly meet many a Satan Mekatrig 
in the streets during the night,” said the old man 
musingly. “ But have you no friends to go to ? ” 

“ None — none — but God! Let me in that I may 
go to Him. Give me shelter, and He will have mercy 
on you when the great Tekiah sounds to-morrow 
night! ” 

Without another word Reb Yitzchok went into his 
room, returned with the key, and threw open the 
door of the women’s synagogue, revealing a dazzling 
flood of light from the numerous candles, big and 
little, which had been left burning in their sconces. 


382 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


The low curtain that served as a partition had been 
half rolled back by devoted husbands who had come 
to inquire after their wives at the end of the service, 
and the synagogue looked unusually large and bright, 
though it was hot and close, with lingering odours 
of breaths, and snuff, and tallow, and smelling-salts. 

With a sob of infinite thankfulness Rebecca 
dropped upon a wooden bench. 

“ Would you like a blanket ? ” said the old man. 

“No, no, God bless you!” she replied. “I must 
watch and weep, not sleep. For the Scroll of Judg¬ 
ment is written and the Book of Life is all but 
closed.” 

With a pitying sigh the old man turned and left 
her alone for the night in the Synagogue of Love 
and Mercy. 

For a few moments Rebecca sat, prayerless, her 
soul full of a strange peace. Then she found her¬ 
self counting the chimes as they rolled out sono¬ 
rously from a neighbouring steeple: One, Two, 
Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, 
Eleven, Twelve! 

* * * * * * 

Starting up suddenly when the last stroke ceased 
to vibrate on the air, Rebecca Grinwitz found, to 
her surprise, that a merciful sleep must have over¬ 
taken her eyelids, that hours must have passed 
since midnight had struck, and that the great Day 
of Atonement must have dawned. Both compart- 


SATAN MEKA TRIG 


383 


ments of the synagogue were full of the restless 
stir of a praying multitude. With a sense of some¬ 
thing vaguely strange, she bent her eyes downward 
on her neighbour’s Machzor. The woman imme¬ 
diately pushed the prayer-book more toward Re¬ 
becca, with a wonderful smile of love and tenderness, 
which seemed to go right through Rebecca’s heart, 
though she could not clearly remember ever having 
seen her neighbour before. Nor, wonderingly steal¬ 
ing a first glance around, could she help feeling that 
the entire congregation was somewhat strange and 
unfamiliar, though she could not quite think why or 
how. The male worshippers, too, why did they all 
wear the shroud-like garments, usually confined on 
this solemn occasion to the ministers and a few extra- 
devout personages ? And had not some transforma¬ 
tion come over the synagogue? Was it only the 
haze before her tear-worn eyes or did dim perspec¬ 
tives of worshippers stretch away boundlessly on all 
sides of the clearly seen area, which still retained the 
form of the room she knew so well ? 

But the curious undercurrent of undefined wonder 
lasted but a moment. In another instant she was 
reconciled to the scene. All was familiar and ex¬ 
pected ; once more she was taking part in divine 
service with no sorrowful thoughts of her husband 
coming to distract her, her whole soul bathing in and 
absorbing the Peace of God which passeth all under¬ 
standing. Then suddenly she felt a stir of recollection 


384 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


coming over her, and a stream of love warming her 
heart, and looking up at her neighbour’s face she saw 
with joyous content that it was that of her mother. 

The service went on, mother and daughter follow¬ 
ing it in the book they had in common. After sev¬ 
eral hours, during which the huge, far-spreading 
congregation alternated with the Cantor in intoning 
the beautiful poems of the liturgy of the day, the 
white curtain with its mystic cabalistic insignia was 
rolled back from the Ark of the Covenant and two 
Scrolls were withdrawn therefrom. Rebecca noted 
with joy that the Ark was filled with Scrolls big and 
little, in rich mantles, and that those taken out were 
swathed in satin beautifully embroidered, and that 
the ornaments and the musically tinkling bells were 
of pure gold. 

Then some of the worshippers were called up in 
turn to the Al Mentor to be present at the reading of 
a section of the Law. They were all well known to 
Rebecca. First came Moses ben Amram. He 
walked humbly up to the Al Mentor with bowed 
head, his long Talith enveloping him from crown to 
foot Rebecca saw his face well, for though it was 
covered with a thick veil, it shone luminously through 
its draping. 

“ Bless ye the Lord, who is blessed,” said Moses 
ben Amram, the words seeming all the sweeter from 
his lips for the slight stammering with which they 
were uttered. 


SATAN MEN A TRIG 


385 


“ Blessed be the Lord, who is blessed to all eternity 
and beyond,” responded the endless congregation, in 
a low murmur that seemed to be taken up and 
vibrated away and away into the infinite distances 
for ever and ever. 

“ Blessed be the Lord, who is blessed to all eternity 
and beyond,” echoed the melodious voice. Then, in 
words that seemed to roll and fill the great gulfs of 
space with a choral music of sacred joy, Moses con¬ 
tinued, “ Blessed be Thou, O Lord, our God, the 
King of the Universe, who hath chosen us from all 
peoples, and given unto us His Law. Blessed art 
Thou, O Lord, who givest the Law.” 

After him came Aaron ben Amram, whose white 
beard reached to his knees. Abraham ben Terah, 
Isaac ben Abraham, and Jacob ben Isaac — all ven¬ 
erable figures, with faces which Rebecca felt were 
radiant with infinite tenderness and compassion for 
such poor helpless children as herself — were also 
called up, and after the Patriarchs, Elijah the Prophet. 
Lastly came a white-haired, stooping figure, whose 
gait and whose every gesture told Rebecca that it 
was her father. How glad she felt to see him thus 
honoured! As she listened to his quavering tones 
the dusty tombstones of dead years seemed rolled 
away, and all their simple joys and griefs to live 
again, not quite as of yore, but transfigured by some 
solemn pathos. 

When the reading of the Law was at an end, 


386 


SA TAN MEN A TRIG 


David ben Jesse, a royal-looking graybeard, held up 
the Scroll to the four corners of space, and it was 
rolled up by his son Solomon, the Preacher; the 
carrying of it to the Ark being given to Rabbi Akiba, 
whose features wore a strange, ecstatic look, as 
though ennobled by suffering. The vast multitude 
rose with a great rustling, the sound whereof reached 
afar, and sang a hymn of rejoicing, so that the whole 
universe was filled with melody. Rebecca alone 
could not sing. For the first time she missed her 
husband, Moshe. Why was he not here, like all the 
other friends of her life, whose beloved faces sur¬ 
rounded her on every side and made a sweet atmos¬ 
phere of security for her soul ? What was he doing 
outside of this mighty assembly ? Why was he not 
there to have the sacred duty of carrying the Scroll 
entrusted to him ? She felt the tears pouring down 
her cheeks. She was ready to sink to the earth with 
sudden lassitude. “ Mother ! dear mother ! ” she 
cried, “ I feel so faint.” 

“You must have some air, my child, my Rivkoly,” 
said the mother, the dearly remembered voice falling 
for the first time with ineffable sweetness on Re¬ 
becca’s ears. And she put out her hand, and lo ! it 
grew longer and longer, till it reached up to the sky¬ 
light, and then suddenly the whole roof vanished and 
the free air of heaven blew in like celestial balm upon 
Rebecca’s hot forehead. Yet she noted with wonder 
that the holy candles burnt on steadily, unfluttered 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


387 


by the refreshing breeze. And then, lo ! the starless 
heavens above her opened out in indescribable Glory. 
The Dark budded into ineffable Beauty ; a supernally 
pure, luminous Splendour, transcendently dazzling, 
filled the infinite depths of the Firmament with melo¬ 
dious coruscations of Infinite Love made visible, and 
white-winged hosts of radiant Cherubim sang “ Holy, 
holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is 
full of His Glory.” And all the vast congregation 
fell upon their faces and cried “ Holy, holy, holy is 
the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth is full of His 
Glory.” And Moses ben Amram arose, and he 
lifted his hands toward the Splendour and he cried, 
“ Lord, Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffer¬ 
ing and full of kindness and truth. Lo, Thou sealest 
the seals before the twilight. Seal Thy People, I 
pray Thee, in the Book of Life, though Thou blot 
me out. Forgive them, and pardon their transgres¬ 
sions for the sake of the merits of the Patriarchs and 
for the sake of the merits of the Martyrs, who have 
shed their blood like water and offered their flesh to 
the flames for the Sanctification of the Name. For¬ 
give them, and blot out their transgressions.” 

And all the congregation said “Amen.” 

Then a surging wave of hope rose within Rebecca’s 
breast, and it lifted her to her feet and stretched out 
her arms toward the Splendour. And she said : 
“ Lord God, forgive Thou my husband, for he is in 
the hand of the Tempter. Save him from the power 


388 


SATA AT MEKA TRIG 


of the Evil One by Thine outstretched arm and Thy 
mighty hand. Save him and pardon him, Lord, in 
Thine infinite mercy.” Then a strange, dread, anx¬ 
ious silence fell upon the vast spaces of the Firma¬ 
ment, till from the heart of the Celestial Splendour 
there fell a Word that floated through the Universe 
like the sweet blended strains of all sweet instru¬ 
ments, a Word that mingled all the harmonies of 
winds and waters and mortal and angelic voices into 
one divine cadence — Salachti. 

And with the sweet Word of Forgiveness linger¬ 
ing musically in her charmed ears, and the sweet 
assurance at her heart that she, the poor, miserable 
tailor’s wife, despised and trodden under foot by the 
rich and by the heathen around, could lean upon the 
breast of an Almighty Father, who had prepared for 
her immortal glories and raptures amid all her loved 
ones in a world where He would wipe the tears from 
off all eyes, Rebecca Grinwitz awoke to find the 
bright morning sunshine streaming in upon her and 
the fresh morning air blowing in upon her fevered 
brow from the skylight which Reb Yitzchok had just 
opened. 

“ Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler .” 
— Psalm xci. 3. 

A shroud of newly fallen snow enveloped the dead 
earth, over which the dull, murky sky looked drearily 
down. Within his fireless garret, which was almost 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


389 


empty of furniture, Moshe Grinwitz lay, wasted away 
to a shadow. His beard was unkempt, his cheek¬ 
bones were almost fleshless, his feverish eyes large 
and staring, his side-curls tangled and untended. 
There did not seem enough strength left in the 
frame to resist a babe; yet, when he coughed, the 
whole skeleton was agitated as though with galvanic 
energy. 

“ Will he never come back ? ” he murmured un¬ 
easily. 

“ Fear not; so far as lies in my power, I shall be 
with you always,” replied the voice of the hunchback 
as he entered the room. “ But, alas! I have little 
comfort to bring you. One pawnbroker after an¬ 
other refused to advance anything on my waistcoat, 
and at last I sold it right out for a few pence. See; 
here is some milk. It is warm.” 

Moshe tried to clutch the jug, but fell back, help¬ 
less. A shade of anxiety passed over his compan¬ 
ion’s face. “ Have I miscalculated ? ” he muttered. 
He held the jug to the sick man’s lips, supporting 
his head with the other. Moshe drank, then fell 
back, and pressed his friend’s hand gratefully. 

“ Poor Moshe,” said the hunchback. “ What a 
shame I tossed into the gutter the gold my father left 
me seven months ago! How could I foresee you 
would be struck down with this long sickness ? ” 

“ No, no, don’t regret it,” quavered Moshe, his white 
face lighting up. “ We had jolly old times, jolly old 


390 


SATAJV MENA TRIG 


times, while the money lasted. Oh, you’ve been a 
good friend to me — a good friend. If I had never 
known you, I should have passed away into nothing¬ 
ness, without ever having known the mad joys of wine 
and riot. I have had wild, voluptuous moments of rev¬ 
elry and mirth. No power in heaven or hell can take 
away the past. And then the sweet freedom of doing 
as you will, thinking as you will, flying with wings un¬ 
clogged by superstition — to you I owe it all! And 
since I have been ill you have watched over me like 

— like a woman.” 

His words died away in a sob, and then there was 
silence, except when his cough sounded strange and 
hollow in the bare room. Presently he went on:— 

“ How unjust Rivkoly was to you ! She once said ” 

— here the speaker laughed a little melancholy 
laugh — “ that you were the Satan Mekatrig in 
person.” 

“Poor afflicted woman!” said his friend, with pitying 
scorn. “ In this nineteenth century, when among 
the wise the belief in the gods has died out, there 
are yet fools alive who believe in the devil. But she 
could only have meant it metaphorically.” 

The sick man shook his head. “ She said the evil 
influence — of course, it seemed evil to her — you 
wielded over her thoughts, and I suppose mine, too, 
was more than human — was supernatural.” 

“ Oh, I don’t say I’m not more strong-minded than 
most people. Of course I am, or I should be howl- 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


391 


ing hymns at the present moment. But why does a 
soldier catch fire under the eye of his captain ? 
What magnetism enables one man to bewitch a na¬ 
tion ? Why does one friend’s unspoken thought find 
unuttered echo in another’s ? Go to Science, study 
Mesmerism, Hypnotism, Thought-Transference, and 
you will learn all about Me and my influence.” 

“Yes, Rivkoly never had any idea of anything out¬ 
side her prayer-book. Rivkoly — ” 

“ Mention not her name to me,” interrupted the 
hunchback harshly. “A woman who deserts her 
husband — ” 

“ She swore to go if I blew out the Yom Kippur 
light. And I did.” 

“A woman who goes out of her wits because her 
husband gets into his ! ” sneered the other. “ Doubt¬ 
less her superstitious fancy conjured up all sorts of 
sights in the dark. Ho ! ho! ho ! ” and he laughed a 
ghastly laugh. “ Happily she will never come back. 
She’s evidently able to get along without you. Prob¬ 
ably she has another husband more to her pious taste.” 

Moshe raised himself convulsively. “ Don’t say 
that again ! ” he screamed. “ My Rivkoly ! ” Then a 
violent cough shook him and his white lips were redr 
dened with blood. 

The cold eyes of the hunchback glittered strangely 
as he saw the blood. “At any rate,” he said, more 
gently, “she cannot break the mighty oath she sware. 
She will never come back.” 


392 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


“ No, she will never come back,” the sick man 
groaned hopelessly. “ But it was cruel of me to drive 
her away. Would to G— ” 

The hunchback hastily put his hand on the speak¬ 
er’s mouth, and tenderly wiped away the blood. 
“When I am better,” said Moshe, with sudden resolu¬ 
tion, “ I will seek her out: perhaps she is starving.” 

“Asyou will. You know she can always earn her 
bread and water at the cap-making. But you are your 
own master. When you are rid of this sickness — 
which will be soon — you shall go and seek her out 
and bring her to abide with you.” The words rang 
sardonically through the chamber. 

“ How good you are ! ” Moshe murmured, as he 
sank back relieved. 

The hunchback leaned over the bed till his gigan¬ 
tic brow almost touched the sick man’s, till his won¬ 
derful eyes lay almost on his. “And yet you will not 
let me hasten on your recovery in the way I pro¬ 
posed to you.” 

“No, no,” Moshe said, trembling all over. “What 
matters if I lie here a week more or less ? ” 

“ Lie here ! ” hissed his friend. “ In a week you 
will lie rotting.” 

A wild cry broke from the blood-bespattered lips! 
“I am not dying! I am not dying! You said just 
now I should be better soon.” 

“ So you will; so you will. But only if we have 
money. Our last farthing, our last means of raising 


SATAN MENA TRIG 


393 


a farthing, is gone. Without proper food, without 
a spark of fire, how can you hold out a week in this 
bitter weather ? No, unless you would pass from the 
light and the gladness of life to the gloom and the 
shadow of the tomb, you must be instantly baptized.” 

“ Shmad myself! Never!” said the sick man, 
the very word conjuring up an intolerable loathing, 
deeper than reason; and then another violent fit of 
coughing shook him. 

“ See how this freezing atmosphere tells on you. 
You must take Christian gold, I tell you. Thus 
only shall I be able to get you fire — to get you fire,” 
repeated the hunchback with horrible emphasis. 
“You call yourself a disbeliever. If so, what mat¬ 
ters? Why should you die for a miserable prej¬ 
udice ? But you are no true infidel. So long as 
you shrink from professing any religion under the 
sun, you still possess a religion. Your unfaith is but 
foam-drift on the deep sea of faith; but lip-babble 
while your heart is still infected with superstition. 
Come, bid me fetch the priest with his crucifix and 
holy water. Let us fool him to the top of his bent. 
Rouse yourself; be a man and live.” 

“ No, no, brother! I will be a man and die.” 

“ Fool! ” hissed the hunchback. “ It fits not one 
who has lived for months by Christian gold to be so 
nice.” 

“ You lie ! ” Moshe gasped. 

“ The seven months that you and I have known 


394 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


each other, it is Christian gold that has warmed you 
and fed you and rejoiced you, and that, melted down, 
has flowed in your veins as wine. Whence, then, 
took I the money for our riotings ? ” 

“ From your father, you said.” 

“Yes, from my spiritual father,” was the grim 
reply. “No, having that belief, which you still lack, 
in the hollowness and mockery of all save pleasure, 
I became a Christian. For a time they paid me 
well, but as soon as I had been put on the annual 
report I had served my purpose and the supplies 
fell off. I could be converted again in another town 
or country, but I dare not leave you. But you are 
a new man, and should I drag you into the fold they 
will reward us both well. Instead of subsisting on 
ary bread and milk you will fare on champagne and 
turtle-soup once more.” 

Moshe sat up and gazed wildly one long second 
at the Tempter. He looked at his own fleshless 
arms, and shuddered. He felt the icy hand of Death 
upon him. He knew himself a young man still. 
Must he go down into the eternal darkness, and be 
folded in the freezing clasp of the King of Terrors, 
while the warm bosom of Life offered itself to his 
embrace? No; give him Life, Life, Life, polluted 
and stained with hypocrisy, but still Life, delicious 
Life. 

The steely eyes of the hunchback watched the 
contest anxiously. Suddenly a change came over 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


395 


the wildly working face — it fell back chill and rigid 
on the pillow, the eyes closed. The room seemed 
to fill with an impalpable, brooding Vapour, as if a 
thick fog were falling outside. The watcher caught 
madly at his friend’s wrist and sought to detect a 
pulsation. His eyes glowed with horrible exultant 
relief. 

“Not yet, not yet, Brother Azrael,” he said 
mockingly, as if addressing the impalpable Va¬ 
pour ; “ Thou who art wholly woven of Eyes, canst 
Thou not see that it is not yet time to throw the 
fatal pellet into his throat ? Back, back ! ” 

The Vapour thickened. The minutes passed. 
The hunchback peered expectant at the corpse¬ 
like face on the dingy pillow. At last the eyes 
opened, but in them shone a strange, rapt ex¬ 
pression. 

“ Thank God, Rivkoly! ” the dying lips muttered. 
“ I knew thou wouldst come.” 

As he spoke there was a frantic beating at the 
door. The hunchback’s face was convulsed. 

“ Hasten, hasten, Brother Azrael! ” he cried. 

The Vapour lightened a little. Moshe Grinwitz 
seemed to rally. His face glowed with eagerness. 

“ Open the door! open the door! ” he cried. 
“It’s Rivkoly — my Rivkoly!” 

The vain battering at the door grew fiercer, but 
none noted it in the house. Since the shadow of 
the hunchback had first fallen within that thickly 


396 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


crowded human nest, the doves had become hawks, 
the hawks vultures. All was discord and bickering. 

“ Lie still,” said the hunchback; “ ’tis but your 
fevered imagination. Drink.” 

He put the jug to the dying man’s lips, but it 
was dashed violently from his hand and shattered 
into a hundred pieces. 

“ Give me nothing bought with Christian money ! ” 
gasped Moshe hoarsely, his breath rattling pain¬ 
fully in his throat. “ Never will I knowingly gain 
by the denial of the Unity of God.” 

“ Then die like a dog! ” roared the hunchback. 
“ Hasten, Brother Azrael! ” 

The Vapour folded itself thickly about the room. 
The rickety door was shaken frantically, as by a 
great gale. 

“ Moshe ! Moshe ! ” shrieked a voice. “ Let me 
in — me — thy Rivkoly! In God’s name, let me 
in! I bring thee a precious gift. Or art thou 
dead, dead, dead ? My God, why didst Thou not 
cause me to know he was ill before! ” 

“Your husband is dying,” said the hunchback. 
“When he is dead, you shall look upon his face. 
But he may not look upon your face again. You 
have sworn it.” 

“ Devil! ” cried the fierce voice of the woman. 
“I swore it on Kol Nidrf night, when I had just 
asked the Almighty to absolve me from all rash 
oaths. Let me in, I tell you.” 




SATAN MEKATRIG 


397 


“ I will not have a sacred oath treated thus 
lightly,” said the hunchback savagely. “ I will 
keep your soul from sin.” 

“ Cursed be thou to eternity of eternities! ” re¬ 
plied the woman. “ Pray, Moshe, pray for thy 
soul. Pray, for thou art dying.” 

“ Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord 
is one,” rose the sonorous Hebrew. 

“ Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord 
is one,” wailed the woman. The very Vapour 
seemed to cling round and prolong the vibrations 
of the sacred words. Only the hunchback was 
silent. The mocking words, died on his lips, and 
as the woman, with one last mighty blow, dashed 
in through the flying door, he seemed to glide 
past her and melt into the darkness of the stair¬ 
case. 

Rivkoly heeded not his contorted, malignant vis¬ 
age, crowned with its serpentine wreath of fiery 
hair; she flew straight through the heavy Vapour, 
stooped and kissed the livid mouth, read in a mo¬ 
ment the decree of Death in the eyes, and then 
put something small and warm into her husband’s 
fast chilling arms. 

“Take it, Mosh6,” she cried, “and comfort thy 
soul in death. ’Tis thy child, for God has at 
last sent us a son. Yom Kippur night — now six 
long months ago — I had a dream that God would 
forgive thee, and I was glad. But when I thought 


398 


SATAN MEKATRIG 


to go home to thee in the evening, I learnt that 
thou hadst been feasting all that dread Day of 
Atonement with the Satan Mekatrig] and my heart 
fell, for I knew that my dream was but the vain 
longing of my breast, and that through thine own 
misguided soul thou couldst never be saved from 
the eternal vengeance. Then I went away, far 
from here, and toiled and lived hard and lone; 
and I believed not in my dream. But I prayed 
and prayed for thy soul, and lo! very soon I was 
answered; for I knew we should have a child. 
And then I entreated that it should be a son, to 
pray for thee, and perhaps win thee back to God, 
and to say the Kaddish after thee when thou 
shouldst come to die, though I knew not that thy 
death was at hand; and a few weeks back the 
Almighty was gracious and merciful to me, and 
I had my wish.” 

She ceased, her wan face radiant. The Shadow of 
Death could not chill her sublime faith, her simple, 
trustful hope. The husband was clasping the feebly 
whimpering babe to his frozen breast, and showering 
passionate kisses on its unconscious form. 

“Rivkoly ! ” he whispered, as the tears rolled down 
his cheeks, “ how pale and thin thou art grown! O 
God, my sin has been heavy! ” 

“ No, no,” she cried, her loving hand in his. “ It 
was the Satan Mekatrig that led thee astray. I am 
well and strong. I will work for our child, and train 



SATA AT MEKATRIG 


399 


it up to pray for thee and to love thee. I have named 
it Jacob, for it shall wrestle with the Recording Angel 
and shall prevail.” 

The hue of death deepened on Mosh6 Grinwitz’s 
face, but it was overspread by a divine calm. 

“ Ah, the good old times we had at the Cheder in 
Poland,” he said. “The rabbi was sometimes cross, 
but we children were always in good spirits; and 
when the Rejoicing of the Law came round it was 
such fun carrying the candles stuck in hollowed 
apples, and gnawing at your candlestick as you 
walked. I always loved Simchath Torah , Rivkoly. 
How long is it to the Rejoicing ? ” 

“ It will soon be here again, now Passover is over,” 
she said, pressing his hand. 

“ Is Pesach over ? ” he said mournfully. “ I don’t 
remember giving Seder. Why didst thou not remind 
me, Rivkoly ? It was so wrong of thee. Thou know- 
est how I loved the sight of the table—the angels 
always seemed to hover about it. Chad Gadyah! 
Chad Gadyah ! ” he commenced to sing in a cracked, 
hoarse whisper. The child burst into a wail. “ Hush, 
hush, Yaankely,” said the mother, taking it to her 
breast. 

“ A—a—ah ! ” A wild scream rose from Moshe 
Grinwitz’s lips. “ My Kaddish ! Take not away my 
Kaddish ! ” He sat up, with clammy, ghastly brow, 
and glared with sightless eyes, his arms groping. A 
thin stream of blood oozed from his mouth. 


400 


SATAN MEN A TRIG 


“ Hear, O Israel! ” screamed the woman, as she 
put her hand to his mouth to stanch the blood. 

He beat her back wildly. “ Not thee! I want 
not thee! My Kaddish! ” came the mad, hoarse 
whisper. “ I have blasphemed God! Give me my 
Kaddish ! give me my Kaddish ! ” 

She put the child into his arms, and he clutched it 
in his dying frenzy. As he felt its feeble form, the 
old divine peace came over his face. The babe’s 
cries were hushed in fear. The mother was dumb 
and stony. And silently the Vapour crawled in 
sluggish folds through the heavy air. 

But in a moment the silence was broken by a deep, 
stertorous rattle. Moshe Grinwitz’s head fell back; 
his arms relaxed their hold of his child, which was 
caught with a wild cry to its mother’s bosom. And 
the dark Vapour lifted, and showed the three figures 
to the baleful, agonized eyes of the hunchback at the 
open door. 





IX 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 







IX 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 1 

Tchemnovosk , Saturday (midnight). — So! The 
first words have been written. For the first time in 
my life I have commenced a diary. Will it prove 
the solace I have heard it is ? Shall I find these now 
cold, blank pages growing more and more familiar, 
till I shall turn to them as to a sympathetic friend; 
till this little book shall become that loved and trusted 
confidant for whom my lonely soul longs ? Instead 
of either Black or White Clergy, this record in black 
and white shall be my father confessor. Our village 
pope, to whom I have so often confessed everything 
but the truth, would be indeed shocked, if he could 
gossip with this, his new-created brother. What a 
heap of roubles it would take to tranquillize him ! 
Ah, God! Ack, God of Israel! how is it possible 
that a man who has known the tenderest human ties 
should be so friendless, so solitary in his closing 
years, that not even in memory can he commune 
with a fellow-soul ? Verily, the old curse has 

1 In order to preserve the local colour, the Translator has occasion¬ 
ally left a word or phrase of the MS. in the original Russian. 

403 


404 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


wrought itself out, that penalty of apostasy which 
came to my mind the other day after nearly forty 
years of forgetfulness, that curse which has filled my 
spirit with shuddering awe, and driven me to seek 
daily communion through thee, little book, even with 
my own self of yesterday — “ And that soul shall be 
cut off from among its people .” Yea, and from all 
others, too! For so many days and years Caterina 
was my constant companion ; I loved her as my own 
soul. Yet was she but a sun that dazzled my eyes 
so that I could not gaze upon my own soul; but a 
veil between me and my dead youth. The sun has 
sunk forever below the horizon; the veil is rent. 
No phantom from the other world hovers to remind 
me of our happiness. Those years, with all their 
raptures and successes, are a dull blank. It is the 
years of boyhood and youth which resurge in my 
consciousness; their tints are vivid, their tones are 
. clear. 

Why is this? Is it Caterina’s death? Is it old 
age? Is it returning to these village scenes after 
half a lifetime spent in towns ? Is it the sight of 
the izbas , and their torpid, tow-haired, sheepskin- 
clad inhabitants, and the great slushy cabbage 
gardens, that has rekindled the ashen past into 
colours of flame ? And yet, except our vodka- 
seller, there isn’t a Jew in the place. However it 
be, Caterina’s face is filmy, phantasmal, compared 
with my mother’s. And mother died forty years 




DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


405 


ago ; the grass of two short years grows over my 
wife’s grave. And Paul? He is living — he kissed 
me but a few moments back. Yet his face is far¬ 
away— elusive. The hues of life are on /ny father’s 
— poor, ignorant, narrow-minded, warm-hearted fa¬ 
ther, whose heart I broke. Happily I have not to 
bear the remembrance of his dying look, but can 
picture him as I saw him in those miserable, happy 
days. My father’s kiss is warm upon the lips which 
my son’s has just left cold. Poor St. Paul, living 
up there with your ideals and your theories like 
a dove in a balloon ! And yet, golubtchik , how I 
love you, my handsome, gifted boy, fighting the 
battle of life so pluckily and well! Ah ! it is hard 
fighting when one is hampered by a conscience. 
Is it your fault that the cold iron bar of a secret 
lies between our souls; that a bar my own hands 
have forged, and which I have not the courage or 
the strength to break, keeps you from my inmost 
heart, and makes us strangers? No; you are the 
best of sons, and love me truly. But if your eyes 
were purged, and you could see the ugly, hateful 
thing, and through and beyond it, into my ugly, 
hateful soul! Ah, no ! That must never be. Your 
affection, your reverential affection, is the only 
sacred and precious thing yet left to me on earth. 
If I lost that, if my spirit were cut off even from 
the semblance of human sympathy, then might the 
grave close over my body, as it would have already 


406 


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closed over my soul. And yet should I have the 
courage to die? Yes; for then Paul would know; 
Paul would obey my wishes and see me buried 
among my people. Paul would hire mourners 
(God! hired mourners, when I have a son!) to say 
the Kaddish. Paul would do his duty, though his 
heart broke. Terrible, ominous words! Break my 
son’s heart as I did my father’s! The saints —voi ! 
I mean God — forfend! And for opposite reasons. 
Ach , it is a strange world. Is religion, then, a 
curse, eternally dividing man from man ? No, I 
will not think these blasphemous thoughts. My 
poor, brave Paul! 

To-morrow will be a hard day. 

Sunday Night. — I have just read over my last 
entry. How cold, how tame the words seem, com¬ 
pared with the tempest with which I am shaken. 
And yet it is a relief to have uttered them; to 
have given vent to my passion and pain. Already 
this scrawl of mine has become sacred to me; al¬ 
ready this study in which I write has become a 
sanctuary to which my soul turns with longing. 
All day long my diary was in my thoughts. All 
my turbulent emotions were softened by the know¬ 
ledge that I should come here and survey them with 
calm ; by the hope that the tranquil reflectiveness 
which writing induces would lead me into some 
haven of rest. And first let me confess that I am 
glad Paul goes back to St. Petersburg on Tuesday. 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


407 


It is a comfort to have him here for a few days, 
and yet, oh, how I dread to meet his clear gaze! 
How irksome this close contact, with the rough 
rubs it gives to all my sore places! How I ab¬ 
horred myself to-day as I went through the ghastly 
mimicries of prayer, and crossing myself, and genu¬ 
flexion, in our little church. How I hate the sight 
of its sky-blue dome and its gilt minarets! When 
the pope brought me the Gospel to kiss, fiery 
shame coursed through my veins. And then when 
I saw the look of humble reverence on Paul’s face 
as he pressed his lips to the silver-bound volume, 
my blood was frozen to ice. Strange, dead memo¬ 
ries seemed to float about the incense-laden air; 
shadowy scenes; old, far-away cadences. And 
when the deacon walked past me with his bougie , 
there seemed to flash upon me some childish rec¬ 
ollection of a joyous candle-bearing procession, 
whereat my eyes grew filled with sudden tears. 
The marble altar, the silver candlesticks, the glit¬ 
tering jewelled scene faded into mist. And then 
the choir sang, and under the music I grew calm 
again. After all, religions were made for men. 
And this one was just fitted for the simple muz¬ 
hiks who dotted the benches with their stupid, 
good natured figures. They must have their gold- 
bedecked gods in painting and image; and their 
saints in gold brocade to kneel before at all hours to 
solace themselves with visions of a brocaded Paradise. 


408 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


And yet what had I to do with these childish super¬ 
stitions ? — I whose race preached the great doctrine 
of the Unity to a world sunk in vice and superstition ; 
whose childish lips were taught to utter the SJiemang 
as soon as they could form the syllables; who know 
that the Christian creed is a monstrous delusion ! To 
think that I have lent the sanction of my manhood 
to these grotesque beliefs. Grotesque, say I ? when 
to Paul they are the essence of all lofty feeling and 
aspiration! And yet I know that he is blind, or sees 
things with that strange perversion of vision of which 
I have heard him accuse the Jews — my brethren. 
He believes what he has been taught. And who 
taught him ? Bozhe moi! was it not I who have 
brought him up in these degrading beliefs, which he 
imagines I share ? God! is this my punishment, 
that he is faithful to the creed taught him by a father 
who was faithless to his own ? And yet there were 
excuses enough for me, Thou knowest. Why did 
these forms and ceremonies, which now loom beauti¬ 
ful to me through a mist of tears, seem hideous 
chains on the free limbs of childhood ? Was it my 
father’s fault or my own that the stereotyped routine 
of the day; that the being dragged out of bed in the 
gray dawn to go to synagogue, or to intone in monot¬ 
onous sing-song the weary casuistries of the rabbis; 
that the endless precepts or prohibitions, made me 
conceive religion as the most hateful of tyrannies ? 
Through the cloud of forty years I can but dimly 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


409 


recall the violence of the repulsion with which things 
Jewish inspired me — of how it galled me to feel that 
I was one of that detested race, that I was that 
mockery and byword, a Zhit; that, with little sym¬ 
pathy with my people, I was yet destined to partake 
of its burdens and its disabilities. Bitter as my soul 
is within me to-day, I can yet understand, can yet 
half excuse, that fatal mistake of ignorant and ambi¬ 
tious youth. 

It were easy for me now to acknowledge myself a 
Jew, even with the risk of Siberia before me. I am 
rich, I have some of the education for which I 
longed, above all, I have lived. Ah, how differently 
the world, with its hopes and its fears, and its praise 
and censure, looks to the youth who is climbing 
slowly up the hill, and the man who is swiftly de¬ 
scending to the valley! But the knowledge of the 
vanity of all things comes too late; this, too, is 
vanity. Enough that I sacrificed the sincerity and 
reality of life for unrealities, which then seemed 
to me the only things worth having. There was 
none to counsel, and none to listen. I fled my home; 
I was baptized into the Church. At once all that 
hampered me was washed away. Before me stretched 
the free, open road of culture and well-being. I was 
no longer the slave of wanton laws, the laughing¬ 
stock of every Muscovite infant, liable to be kicked 
and cuffed and spat at by every true Russian. What 
mattered a lip-profession of Christianity, when I cared 


410 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


as little for Judaism as for it? I never looked back; 
my prior life faded quickly from my memory. Alone 
I fought the battle of life — alone, unaided by man or 
hope in God. A few lucky speculations on the 
Bourse, starting from the risking of the few kopecks 
amassed by tuition, rescued me from the need of 
pursuing my law-studies. I fell in love and married. 
Caterina, your lovely face came effectively between 
me and what vague visions of my past, what dim un¬ 
easiness of remorse, yet haunted me. You never 
knew — your family never knew — that I was not a 
Slav to the backbone. The new life lay fold on fold 
over the old; the primitive writing of the palimpsest 
was so thickly written over, that no thought of what 
I had once been troubled me during all those years 
of wedded life, made happier by your birth and 
growth, my Paul, my darling Paul; no voice came 
from those forgotten shores, save once, when — who 
knows through what impalpable medium ? — I learnt 
or divined my father’s death, and all the air was filled 
with hollow echoes of reproach. During those years 
I avoided contact with Jews as much as I could; 
when it was inevitable, I made the contact brief. 
The thought of the men, of their gabardines and 
their pious ringlets, of their studious dronings and 
their devout quiverings and wailings, of the women 
with their coarse figures and their unsightly wigs; 
the remembrance of their vulgar dialect, and their 
shuffling ways, and their accommodating morality, 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


411 


filled me with repulsion. As if to justify myself to 
myself, my mind conceived of them only in their 
meanest and tawdriest aspects. The black points 
alone caught my eye, and linked themselves into a 
perfect-seeming picture. 

Da , I have been a good Russian, a good Christian. 
I have not stirred my little finger to help the Jews 
in their many and grievous afflictions. They were 
nothing to me. Over the vodka and the champagne 
I have joined in the laugh against them, without 
even feeling I was of them. Why, then, these 
strange sympathies that agitate me now; these feel¬ 
ings, shadowy, but strong and resistless as the 
shadow of death ? Am I sane, or is this but in¬ 
cipient madness ? Am I sinking into a literal second 
childhood, in which all the terrors and the sanctities 
that once froze or stirred my soul have come to 
possess me once more ? Am I dying ? I have 
heard that the scene of half a century ago may be 
more vivid to dying eyes than the chamber of death 
itself. Has Caterina’s death left a blank which 
these primitive beloved memories rush in to fill up ? 
Was it the light of her face that blinded me to the 
dear homely faces of my father and mother ? If I 
had not met her, how would things have been ? 
Should I have repented earlier of my hollow ex¬ 
istence ? Was it the genuineness of her faith in her 
heathen creed that made me acquiesce in its daily 
profession and its dominance in our household life? 



412 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


And are the old currents flowing so strongly now, 
only because they were so long artificially dammed 
up ? Of what avail to ask myself these questions? I 
asked them yesterday and I shall be no wiser to¬ 
morrow. No man can analyze his own emotions, 
least of all I, unskilled to sound the depths of my 
soul, content if the surface be unruffled. Perhaps, 
after all, it is Paul who is the cause of the troubling 
of the waters, which yet I am glad have not been 
left in their putrid stagnation. For since Caterina’s 
clay-cold form was laid in the Moscow churchyard, 
and Paul and I have been brought the nearer to¬ 
gether for the void, my son has opened my eyes to 
my baseness. The light that radiates from his own 
terrible nobleness has shown me how black and pol¬ 
luted a soul is mine. My whole life has been shuffled 
through under false colours. Even if I shared few 
of the Jew’s beliefs, it should have been my duty — 
and my proud duty — to proclaim myself of the race. 
If, as I fondly believed, I was superior to my people, 
then it behoved me to allow that superiority to be 
counted to their credit and to the honour of the 
Jewish flag. My poor brethren, sore indeed has been 
your travail, and your cry of pain pierces the centu¬ 
ries. Perhaps — who knows? — I could have helped 
a little if I had been faithful, as faithful as Paul 
will be to his own ideals. Ah, if Paul had been a 
Jew —! My God! is Paul a Jew? Have I upon my 
shoulders the guilt of this loss to Judaism, too ? 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


413 


Analyze myself, reproach myself, doubt my own 
sanity how I may, one thing is clear. From the 
bottom of my heart I long, I yearn., I burn to return 
to the religion of my childhood. I long to say and 
to sing the Hebrew words that come scantily and 
with effort to my lips. I long to join my brethren at 
prayer, to sit with them in the synagogue, in the 
study, at the table; to join them in their worship and 
at their meals; to share with them their joys and 
sorrows, their wrongs and their inner delights. 
Laugh at myself how I will, I long to bind my arm 
and brow with the phylacteries of old and to wrap 
myself in my fringed shawl, and to abase myself in 
the dust before the God of Israel; nay, to don the 
greasy gabardine at which I have mocked, and to let 
my hair grow even as theirs. As yet this is all but 
a troubled aspiration, but it is irresistible and must 
work itself out in deeds. It cannot be argued with. 
The wind bloweth as it listeth; who shall say why I 
am tempest-tossed ? 

Monday Night. — Paul has retired to rest to rise 
early to-morrow for the journey to Moscow. For 
something has happened to alter his plans, and he 
goes thither instead of to the capital. He is sleeping 
the sleep of the young, the hopeful, and the joyous. 
Ach , that what gives him joy should be to me —; 
but let me write down all. This morning at break¬ 
fast Paul received a letter, which he read with a 
cry of astonishment and joy. “ Look, little father, 



414 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


look,” he exclaimed, handing it to me. I read, trying 
to disguise my own feelings and to sympathize with 
his gladness. It was a letter from a firm of well- 
known publishers in Moscow, offering to publish a 
work on the Greek Church, the MS. of which he had 
submitted to them. 

“Nu vot , batiushka ,” said he, “ I will tell you that 
this book donnera a penser to the theologians of the 
bastard forms of Christianity.” 

The ribald remark that rose to my lips did not 
pass them. “ But why did you not tell me of this 
before?” I asked instead, endeavouring to infuse a 
note ot reproach into my indifference. 

“ Ah, father, I did not want you to distress your¬ 
self. i knew your affection for me was so great 
that you might want to stint yourself, and put your- 
st f to trouble to help me to pay the expenses of 
publication myself. You would have shared my 
disappointments. I wanted you to share my triumph 
— as now. It is two years that I have been trying 
to get it published. I wrote it in the year before 
mother, whose soul is with the saints, left us. But, 
eka ! I am recompensed at last.” And his pale face 
beamed and his dark eyes flashed with excitement. 

Yes, Paul was right. As Paul always is. Brought 
up, I think wisely, to believe in my comparative 
poverty, he has become manlier for not having a 
crutch to lean upon. Was it not enough that he was 
devoid from the start of the dull, dead weight of 




DIARY OF A ME SHU MAD 


415 


Judaism which clogged my own early years? Up 
to the present, though, he has not done so well as I. 
Russian provincial journalism scatters few luxuries 
to its votaries. Paul is so stupidly contented with 
everything that he is not likely to write anything to 
make a sensation. He has not invented gunpowder. 

Paul’s voice broke in curiously on my reflections. 
“ It ought to make some sensation. I have collected 
a whole series of new arguments, partly textual, 
partly historical, to show the absolute want of locus 
standi of any other than the Orthodox Church.” 

“ Indeed,” I murmured, “and what is the Ortho¬ 
dox Church ? ” Paul stared at me. 

“I mean,” I added hastily, “your conception of 
the Orthodox Church.” 

“ My conception ? ” said Paul. “ I suppose you 
mean how do I defend the conception which is 
embodied in our ceremonies and ritual ? ” And be¬ 
fore I could stop him, he had given me a summary 
of his arguments under which I would not have kept 
awake if I had not been thinking of other things. 
My poor boy ! So this wire-drawn stuff about the 
Sacrament and the Lord’s Supper is what has cost 
you toilsome days and sleepless nights, while to me 
the thought that I had embraced one variety of 
Christianity rather than another had never before 
occurred. All forms were the same to me, from 
Catholicism to Calvinism ; the baptismal water had 
glided from my back as from a duck’s. True, I have 


416 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


lived with all the conventional surroundings of my 
Christian fellow-countrymen, as I have lived with the 
language of Russia on my lips, and subservient to 
Russian customs and manners. But all the while I 
was neither a Russian nor a Christian. I was a Jew. 

Every now and again I roused myself to laudatory 
assent to one of Paul’s arguments when I divined by 
his tone that it was due. But when he wound up 
with a panegyric on “ our glorious Russian State,” 
and “ our little father, the Czar, God’s Vicegerent 
on earth, who alone of European monarchs incar¬ 
nates and unites in his person Church and State, so 
that loyalty and piety are one,” I could not refrain 
from pointing out that it was a pure fluke that 
Russia was “ orthodox ” at all. 

“ Suppose,” said I, “ Wladimir, when he made his 
famous choice between the Creeds of the world, had 
picked Judaism? It all turned on a single man’s 
whim.” 

“Father,” Paul cried in a pained tone, “do not 
be blasphemous. Wladimir was divinely inspired to 
dower his country with the true faith. Just therein 
lay the wisdom of Providence in achieving such great 
results through the medium of an individual. It is 
impossible that God should have permitted him to 
incline his ear to the infidel Israelite, who has sur¬ 
vived to be at once a link with the past and a living 
proof of the sterility of the soul that refuses the liv¬ 
ing waters. The millions of holy Russia perpetuat- 



DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


417 


ing the stubborn heresy of the Jews — adopting an 
unfaith as a faith ! The very thought makes the 
blood run cold. Nay, then would every Russian 
deserve to be sunk in squalor, dishonesty, and rapac¬ 
ity, even as every Jew.” 

“ Not every Jew, Paul,” I remonstrated. 

“ No, not perhaps every Jew in squalor,” he as¬ 
sented, with a sarcastic laugh; “ for too many of the 
knaves have feathered their nests very comfortably. 
Even the Raskolnik is more tolerable. And many 
of them are not even Jews. The Russian Press is 
infested with these fellows, who take the bread out 
of the mouths of honest Christians, and will even 
write the leaders in the religious papers. Believe 
me, little father, these Jewish scribblers who have 
planted their flagstaffs everywhere have cost me 
many a heartache, many a disappointment.” 

I could not help thinking this sentiment somewhat 
unworthy of my Paul, though it threw a flood of 
light on the struggle, whose details he had never 
troubled me with. I began to doubt my wisdom in 
sending so unpractical a youth out into the battle of 
life, to hew his way as best he might. But how was 
I to foresee that he would become a writing man, that 
he would be tripped up at every turn by some clever 
Hebrew, and that his aversion from the race would 
be intensified ? 

“ But surely,” I said, after a moment of silence, 
“ our Slavic journalists are not all Christians, either.” 


418 


DIARY OF A MRS HUM AD 


“They are not,” he admitted sadly. “The Uni¬ 
versities have much to answer for. Instead of rig¬ 
idly excluding every vicious book that unsettles the 
great social and religious ideals of which God de¬ 
signed Russia to be the exponent, the works of Spen¬ 
cer and Taine, and Karl Marx and Tourguenieff, and 
every literary Antichrist, are allowed to poison faith 
in the sap. The censor only bars the superficially 
anti-Russian books. But there will come a reaction. 
A reaction,” he added solemnly, “ to which this work 
of mine may, by the grace of God, be permitted to 
contribute.” 

I could have laughed at my son if I had not felt 
so inclined to weep. Paul’s pietism irritated me for 
the first time. Was it that my reaction against my 
past had become stronger than ever, was it that Paul 
had never exposed his own narrowness so completely 
before ? I know not. I only know I felt quite 
angry with him. “ And how do you know there 
will ever be a reaction ? ” I asked. 

“ Christ never leaves himself without a witness 
long,” he answered sententiously. “ And already 
there are symptoms enough that the creed of the 
materialist does not satisfy the soul. Look at our 
Tolstof, who is coming back to Christianity after 
ranging at will through the gaudy pleasure-grounds 
of science and life; it is true his Christianity is cast 
after his own formula, and that he has still much 
intellectual pride to conquer, but he is on the right 


DIARY OF A ME SHU MAD 


419 


road to the fountain of life. But, little father, you 
are unlike yourself this morning,” he went on, putting 
his hand to my hot forehead. “You are not well.” 
He kissed me. “ Let me give you another cup of 
tea,” he said, and turned on the tap of the samovar 
with an air that disposed of the subject. 

I sipped at my cup to please him, remarking in 
the interval between two sips as indifferently as I 
could, “ But what makes you so bitter against the 
Jews ? ” 

“And what makes you so suddenly their cham¬ 
pion ? ” he retorted. 

“ When have I championed them ? ” I asked, 
backing. 

“Your pardon,” he said. “Of course I should 
have understood you are only putting in a word for 
them for argument’s sake. But I confess I have no 
patience with any one who has any patience with 
these bloodsuckers of the State. Every true Russian 
must abhor them. They despise the true faith, and 
are indifferent to our ideals. They sneak out of the 
conscription. They live for themselves, and regard 
us as their natural prey. Our peasantry are cor¬ 
rupted by their brandy-shops, squeezed by their 
money-lenders, and roused to discontent by the 
insidious utterances of their peddlers, d—d wander¬ 
ing Jews, who hate the Government and the Tschinn 
and everything Russian. When did a Jew invest his 
money in Russian industries? They are a filthy, 


420 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


treacherous, swindling set. Believe me, batiushka , 
pity is wasted upon them.” 

“ Pity is never spent upon them,” I retorted. 
“They are what the Russians — what we Russians 
— have made them. Who has pent them into their 
foul cellars and reeking dens? They work with 
their brains, and you — we — abuse them for not 
working with their hands. They work with their 
hands, and the Czar issues a ukase that they are to 
be driven off the soil they have tilled. It is Aisop’s 
fable of the wolf and the lamb.” 

“ In which the wolf is the Jew,” said Paul coolly. 
“The Jew can always be trusted to take cafe of him¬ 
self. His cunning is devilish. Till his heart is re¬ 
generate, the Jew remains the Ishmael of the modern 
world, his hand against every man’s, every man’s 
against his.” 

“ ‘ Love thy neighbour as thyself,’ ” I quoted 
bitterly. 

“ Even so,” said Paul. “The Jew must be cut off, 
even as the Christian must pluck out his own eye if 
it offendeth him. Christ came among us to bring 
not peace but a sword. If the Kingdom of Christ 
is delayed by these vermin, they must be poisoned 
off for the sake of Russia and humanity at large.” 

“Vermin, indeed!” I cried hotly, for I could no 
longer restrain myself. “And what know you of 
these vermin of whom you speak with such assur¬ 
ance ? What know you of their inner lives, of their 



DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


42i 


sanctified homes, of their patient sufferings ? Have 
you penetrated to their hearths and seen the beauti¬ 
ful naivett of their lives, their simple faith in God’s 
protection, though it may well seem illusion, their 
unselfish domesticity, their sublime scorn of tempta¬ 
tion, their fidelity to the faith of their ancestors, 
their touching celebrations of fast and festival, their 
stanchness to one another, their humble living and 
their high respect for things intellectual, their un¬ 
flinching toil from morn till eve for a few kopecks 
of gain, their heroic endurance of every form of 
torment, vilification, contempt — ?” I felt myself 
bursting into tears and broke from the breakfast 
table. 

Paul followed me to my room in amazement. In 
the midst of all my tempest of emotion I was no less 
amazed at my own indiscretion. 

“ What is the matter with you ? ” he said, clasping 
his arm around my neck. “ Why make yourself so 
hot over this accursed race, for whom, from some 
strange whim or spirit of perverseness, you stand up 
to-day for the first time in my recollection ? ” 

“It is true; why indeed?” I murmured, striving 
to master myself. After all, the picture I had 
drawn was as ideal in its beauty as Paul’s in its ugli¬ 
ness. “Nu, I only wanted you to remember that 
they were human beings.” 

“Ack, there is the pity of it,” persisted Paul; 
“that human beings should fall so low. And who 



422 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


has been telling you of all these angelic qualities 
you roll so glibly off your tongue ? ” 

“No one,” I answered. 

“Then you have invented them. Ha! ha! ha!” 
And Paul went off into a fit of good-humoured 
laughter. That laughter was a sword between his 
life and mine, but I let a responsive smile play across 
my features, and Paul went to his own room in higher 
spirits than ever. 

We met again at dinner, and again at our early 
supper, but Paul was too full of his book, and I of 
my own thoughts to permit of a renewal of the dis¬ 
pute. Even a saint, I perceive, has his touch of 
egotism, and behind all Paul’s talk of Russia’s ideals, 
of the misconceptions of their fatherland’s function 
by feather-brained Nihilists and Democrats possessed 
of that devil, the modern spirit, there danced, I am 
convinced, a glorified vision of St. Paul floating 
down the vistas of the future, with a nimbus of 
Russian ideals around his head. If he has only put 
them as eloquently into his book as he talks of them 
he will at least be read. 

But I have bred a bigot. 

And the more bigoted he is, the more my heart 
faints within me for the simple, sublime faith of my 
people. Behind all the tangled network of ceremony 
and ritual, the larger mind of the man who has lived 
and loved sees the outlines of a creed grand in its 
simplicity, sublime in its persistence. The spirit 



DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


423 


has clothed itself on with flesh, as it must do for 
human eyes to gaze on it and live with it; and if, 
in addition, it has swaddled itself with fold on fold 
of garment, even so the music has not gone out of 
its voice, nor the love out of its eyes. 

As soon as Paul is gone to-morrow, I must plan 
out my future life. His book will doubtless launch 
him on the road to fame and fortune. But what 
remains for me? To live on as I am doing would 
be intolerable. To do nothing for my people, either 
with voice or purse, to live alone in this sleepy ham¬ 
let, cut off from all human fellowship, alienated 
from everything that makes my neighbours’ lives 
endurable — better death than such a death-in-life. 
And yet is it possible that I can get into touch again 
with my youth, that after a sort of Rip Van Winkle 
sleep, I can take up again and retwine the severed 
strands ? How shall my people receive again a 
viper into its bosom ? Well, come what may, there 
must be an end to this. Even at this moment 
reproachful voices haunt my ear; and in another 
moment, when I put down my pen to go to my 
sleepless bed, I shall take care to light my bed¬ 
room candle before extinguishing my lamp, for the 
momentary darkness would be filled with impalpable 
solemnity bordering on horror. Flashes and echoes 
from the ghostly world of my youth, the faces of 
my dead parents, strange fragments of sound and 
speech, the sough of the wind in the trees of the 


424 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


“ House of the Living,” the far-away voice of the 
Chazan singing some melancholy tune full of heart¬ 
break and weirdness, the little crowded Cheder 
where the rabbi intoned the monotonous lesson, the 
whizz of the stone little Ivanovitch flung at my fore¬ 
head because I had “killed Christ”—. No, my 
nerves are not strong enough to bear these visions 
and voices. 

All my life long I see now I have been reserved 
and solitary. Never has any one been admitted to 
my heart of hearts — not even Caterina. But now I 
must unburden my soul to some one ere I die. And 
to another living soul. For this dead sheet of paper 
will not, I perceive, do after all. 

Saturday Night. — Nearly a week has passed since 
I wrote the above words, and I am driven to your 
pages again. I would have come to you last night, 
but suddenly I recollected that it was the Sabbath. 
I have kept the Sabbath. I have prayed a few broken 
fragments of prayer, recovered almost miraculously 
from the deeps of memory. I have rested from every 
toil. I stayed myself from stirring up the fire, though 
it was cold and I was shivering. And a new peace 
has come to me. 

I have heard from Paul; he has completed the 
negotiations with the Moscow booksellers. The book 
is to have every chance. Of course, in a way I wish 
it success. It cannot do much harm, and I am proud 
of Paul, after all. What a rabbi he would have 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


425 


made ! It seems these publishers are also the owners 
of a paper, and Paul is to have some work on it, which 
will give him enough to live upon. So he will stay 
in Moscow for a few months and see his book through 
the press. He fears the distance is too great for 
him to come to and fro, as he would have done had 
he been at the capital. Though I know I shall long 
for his presence sometimes in my strange reactions, 
yet on the whole I feel relieved. To-morrow without 
Paul will be an easier day. I shall not go to church, 
though honest old Clara Petroffskovna may stare and 
cross herself in holy horror, and spoil the borsch. As 
for the neighbours — let the startchina and the staros- 
tas and the retired major from Courland, and even 
the bibulous Prince Shoubinoff, gossip as they will. 
I cannot remain here now for more than a few weeks. 
Besides, I can be unwell. No, on second thoughts, I 
shall not be unwell. I have had enough of shuffling 
and deceit. 

Sunday. — A day of horrible ennui and despair. 
I tried to read the Old Testament, of course in Rus¬ 
sian, for Hebrew books I have none, and it is doubt¬ 
ful whether I could read them if I had. But the 
black cloud remained. It chokes me as I write. My 
limbs are as lead, my head aches. And yet I know 
the ailment is not of the body. 

Monday. — The depression persists. I made a lit¬ 
tle expedition into the country. I rowed up the 
stream in a duscehubka. I tried to forget everything 


426 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


but the colours of the forest and the sparkle of the 
waters. The air was less cold than it has been for 
the last few days, but the russet of the pine-leaves 
spoke to me only of melancholy and decay. The sun 
set in blood behind the hills. Once I heard the howl 
of the wolves, but they were far away. 

Monday. — So. Just a week. Nicholas Alexan- 
drovitch says I must not write yet, but I must fill up 
the record, even if in a few lines. It is strange how 
every habit—even diary-keeping — enslaves you, till 
you think only of your neglected task. Ah, well! if 
I have been ill, I have been lucky in my period, for 
those frightful storms would have kept me indoors. 
Nicholas Alexandrovitch says it was a mild attack of 
influenza. God preserve me from a severe one! 
And yet would it not be better if it had carried me off 
altogether ? But that is a cowardly thought. I must 
face the future bravely, for my own hands have forged 
my fate. How the writing trembles and contorts it¬ 
self! I must remember Nicholas’s caution. He is a 
frank, good-hearted fellow, is our village doctor, and 
I have had two or three talks with him from between 
the bedclothes. I don’t think friend Nicholas is a 
very devout Christian, by the by; for he said one or 
two things which I should have taken seriously, had 
I been what he thinks I am ; but which had an auda¬ 
cious, ironical sound to my sympathetic, sceptical 
ears. How funny was that story about the Archi¬ 
mandrite of Czernovitch ! 




DEAR V OF A MESHUMAD 


427 


Thursday Afternoon. — My haste to be out of 
bed precipitated me back again into it. But the 
actual pain has been small. I have grown very 
friendly with Nicholas Alexandrovitch, and he has 
promised to spend the evening with me. I am better 
now in body, though still troubled in mind. Paul’s 
silence has brought a new anxiety. He has not writ¬ 
ten for twelve days. What can be the matter with 
him ? I suppose he is overworking himself. And 
now to hunt up my best cigarettes for Monsieur le 
medecin. Strange that illness should perhaps have 
brought me a friend. Nothing, alas ! can bring me a 
confidant. 

ii p.m .—Astounding discovery! Nicholas Alex¬ 
androvitch is a Jew! I don’t know how it was, but 
suddenly something was said; we looked at each 
other, and then a sort of light flashed across our 
faces; we read the mutual secret in each other’s 
eyes; a magnetic impulse linked our hands together 
in a friendly clasp, and we felt that we were brothers. 
And yet Nicholas is a whole world apart from me in 
feeling and conviction. How strange and myste¬ 
rious is this latent brotherhood which binds our race 
together through all differences of rank, country, and 
even faith! For Nicholas is an agnostic of agnos¬ 
tics ; he is even further removed from sympathy with 
my new-found faith than the ordinary Christian, and 
yet my sympathy with him is not only warmer than, 
but different in kind from, that which I feel toward 



428 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


any Christian, even Caterina’s brother. I have told 
him all. Yes, little book, him also have I told all. 
And he sneers at me. But there lurks more frater¬ 
nity in his sneer than in a Christian’s applause. We 
are knit below the surface like two ocean rocks, 
whose isolated crests rise above the waters. Nicho¬ 
las laughs at there being any Judaism to survive, or 
anything in Judaism worth surviving. He declares 
that the chosen people have been chosen for the 
plaything of the fates, fed with illusions and windy 
conceit, and rewarded for their fidelity with tor¬ 
ture and persecution. He pities them, as he would 
pity a dog that wanders round its master’s grave, and 
will not eat for grief. In fact, save for this pity, he 
is even as I was until these new emotions rent me. 
He is outwardly a Christian, because he could not 
live comfortably otherwise, but he has nothing but 
contempt for the poor peasants whose fever-wrung 
brows he touches with a woman’s hand. He looks 
upon them only as a superior variety of cattle, and 
upon the well-to-do people here as animals with all 
the vices of the muzhiks, and none of their virtues. 
For my Judaic cravings he has a good-natured mock¬ 
ery, and tells me I was but sickening for this in¬ 
fluenza. He says all my symptoms are physical, not 
spiritual; that the loss of Caterina depressed me, 
that this depression drove me into solitude, and that 
this solitude in its turn reacted on my depression. 
He thinks that religion is a secretion of morbid 



DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


429 


minds, and that my Judaism will vanish again with 
the last traces of my influenza. And, indeed, there 
is much force in what he says, and much truth in his 
diagnosis and analysis of my condition. He advises 
me to take plenty of outdoor exercise, and to go 
back again to one of the great towns. To go back 
to Judaism, to ally one’s self with an outcast race 
and a dying religion is, he thinks, an act of folly 
only paralleled by its inutility. The world will out¬ 
grow all these forms and prejudices in time is his 
confident assurance, as he puffs tranquilly at his 
cigarette and sips his Chartreuse. He points out, 
what is true enough, that I am not alone in my dis¬ 
sent from the religion I profess; for, as he epigram- 
matically puts it, the greatest Raskolniks 1 are the 
Orthodox. The religious statistics of the Procurator 
of the State Synod are, indeed, a poor index to the 
facts. Well, there is comfort in being damned in 
company. I do not agree with him on any other 
point, but he has done me good. The black cloud 
is partially lifted — perhaps the trouble was only 
physical, after all. I feel brighter and calmer than 
for months past. Anyhow, if I am to become a Jew 
again, I can think it out quietly. Even if I could 
bear Paul’s contempt, there would always be, as 
Nicholas points out, great peril for me in renouncing 
the Orthodox faith. True, it would be easy enough 
to bribe the priest and the authorities, and to con- 


Dissenters. 


430 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


tinue to receive my eucharistical certificate. But 
where is the sacrifice in that? It is hypocrisy ex¬ 
changed for hypocrisy. And then what would 
become of Paul’s prospects if it were known his 
father was a Zhitf But I cannot think of all this 
now. Paul’s silence is beginning to fill me with a 
frightful uneasiness. A presentiment of evil weighs 
upon me. My dear dove; my dusha Paul! 

Friday Afternoon. —Still no letter from Paul. Can 
anything have happened ? I have written to him, 
briefly informing him that I have been unwell. I 
shall ride to Zlotow and telegraph, if I do not hear 
in a day or two. 

Saturday Morning. — All petty and stupid thoughts 
of my own spiritual condition are swallowed up in 
the thought of Paul. Ever selfish, I have allowed 
him to dwell alone in a far-off city, exposed to all the 
vicissitudes of life. Perhaps he is ill, perhaps he is 
half-starved on his journalistic pittance. 

Saturday Night. — A cruel disappointment! A 
letter came, but it was only from my man of business, 
advising investment in some South American loan. 
Have given him carte blanche. Of what use is my 
money to me ? Even Paul couldn’t spend it now, 
with the training I have given him. He is only 
fitted for the cowl. He may yet join the Black 
Clergy. Why does he not write, my poor St. Paul ? 

Sunday. — Obedient to the insistent clamour of 
the bells, I accompanied Nicholas Alexandrovitch 




DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


431 


to church , and mechanically asked help of the 
Virgin at the street corner. For I have gone back 
into my old indifference, as Nicholas predicted. I 
have given the necessary orders. The paracladnoi 
is ready. To-morrow I go to Zlotow; thence I take 
the train for Moscow. He will not tell me the truth 
if I wire. . . . The weather is bitterly cold, and 
the stoves here are so small. ... I am shivering 
again, but a glass of vodka will put me right. ... A 
knock. . . . Clara Petroffskovna has run to the 
door. Who can it be ? Paul ? 

Monday Afternoon. — No, it was not Paul. Only 
Nicholas Alexandrovitch. He had heard in the vil¬ 
lage that I was making preparations for a journey, 
and came to inquire about it, and to reproach me for 
not telling him. He looked relieved when I told 
him it was only to Moscow to look after Paul. I fancy 
he thought I had had a fit of remorse for my morn¬ 
ing’s devotions, and was off to seek readmission into 
the fold. Except our innkeeper, there is not a Jew 
in this truly God-forsaken place. Of course, I don’t 
reckon myself — or the doctor. I wonder if our pope 
is a Jew! I laugh — but who knows? Anyhow I 
am here, wrapped in my thickest fur cloak, while 
it is Nicholas who is on the road to Moscow. He 
spoke truly in saying I was too weak yet to under¬ 
take the journey — that springless paracladnoi alone 
is enough to knock a healthy man up; though 
whether he was equally veracious in professing to 


432 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


have business to transact in Moscow, I cannot say. 
Da , he is a good fellow, is my brother Nicholas. 
To-morrow I shall know if anything has happened 
to my son, to my only child. 

Tuesday Night. — Thank God ! A wire from 
Nicholas. “ Have seen Paul. No cause for uneasi¬ 
ness. Will write.” Blessings on you, my friend, for 
the trouble you have taken for me. I feel much 
better already. Paul has, I suppose, been throwing 
himself heart and soul into this new journalistic work, 
and has forgotten his loving father. After all, it is 
only a fortnight, though it has seemed months. 
Anyhow, he will write. I shall hear from him in a 
day or two now. But a sudden thought. “ Will 
write.” Who will write? Paul or Nicholas? Oh, 
Paul; Paul without doubt. Nicholas has told him 
of my anxiety. Yes. To-morrow night or the next 
morning I shall have a letter from Paul. All is well. 

If I were to tell Paul the truth, I wonder what he 
would say ! I am afraid I shall never know. 

Thursday Noon. — A letter from Nicholas. I can¬ 
not do better than place it here. 

“ My dear Demetrius, — I hope you got my telegram and 
are at ease again. I had a lively journey up here, travelling in 
company with a Government employ6, who is very proud of his 
country, and of the Stanislaus cross round his neck. Such a 
pompous ass I have never met; he beats even our friend, Prince 
Shoubinoff, in his Sunday clothes, with the barina on his arm. 
As you may imagine, I drew him out like a telescope. I have 
many a droll story for you when I return. To come to Paul. I 







DIARY OF A MESIIUMAD 


433 


made it my business at once to call upon the publishers — it 
is one of the largest firms here — and from them I learnt that 
your son was still at the same address, in the Kitai-Gorod , as 
that given in the first and only letter you have had from him. 
I did not care about going there direct, for I thought it best that 
he should be unaware of my presence, in case there should be 
anything which it would be advisable for me to find out for your 
information. However, by haunting the neighbourhood of the 
offices of his newspaper, I caught sight of him within a couple 
of hours. He has a somewhat over-wrought expression in his 
countenance, and does not look particularly well. I fancy he is 
exciting himself about the production of his book. He has not 
seen me yet, nor shall I let him see me till I ascertain that he is 
not in any trouble. It is only his silence to you that makes me 
fancy something may be the matter; otherwise I should unhesi¬ 
tatingly put down his pallor and intensity of expression to 
over-work and, perhaps, religious fervour. He went straight to 
the Petrovski Cathedral on leaving the offices. I am here for 
a few days longer, and will write again. It is frightfully cold. 
The thermometer is at freezing point. I sit in my shuba and 
shiver. Au revoir. 

“Nicholas Alexandrovitch.” 

There is something not quite satisfying about this 
letter. It looks as if there was more beneath the 
surface. Paul is evidently looking ill or ecstatic, 
or both. But, at any rate, my main anxiety is 
allayed. I can wait with more composure for 
Nicholas’s second letter. But why does not the 
boy write himself ? He must have got the letter 
telling him I had been unwell. And yet not a word 
of sympathy! I don’t half like Nicholas’s idea of 
playing the spy, though, as if my son is not to be 
trusted. What can he suspect ? But Nicholas Alex- 


434 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


androvitch dearly loves to invent a mystery for the 
sake of ferreting it out. These scientific men are so 
sharp that they often cut themselves. 

Friday Afternoon. —At last Paul has written. 

“My Darling Papasha, — I am surprised you should be 
anxious about me. I am quite comfortable here, and have now 
conquered all the difficulties that beset me at the first. How 
came you to allow yourself to be unwell? I hope Nicholas 
Alexandrovitch is taking care of you. By the by, I almost 
thought I saw him here this morning on the bridge, looking over 
into the reka, but there was a church procession, and I had hur¬ 
ried past the man before the thought struck me, and the odds 
were so much against its being our zemski-doktor, that I would 
not trouble to turn back. I have already corrected the proofs 
of several sheets of my book. It will be dedicated, by 
special permission, to Archbishop Varenkin. My articles in the 
Courier are attracting considerable attention. I have left orders 
for the publishers to send you my last, which will appear to¬ 
morrow. May the holy Mother and the saints watch over you. 
— Your devoted son, Paul. 

“P.S. — I am making more money than I want, and I shall 
be glad to send you some, if you have any wants unsupplied . 11 

My darling boy! How could I ever have felt 
myself alienated from you ? I will come to you 
and live with you and share your triumphs. No 
miserable scruples shall divide our lives any more. 
The past is ineradicable; the future is its inevi¬ 
table fruit. So be it. My spiritual yearnings and 
wrestlings were but the outcome of a morbid physi¬ 
cal condition. Nicholas was right. And now to 
read my son’s article, which I have here, marked 



DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


435 


with a blue border. Why should I, with my super¬ 
ficial ponderings, be right and he wrong? 

Saturday Night. — I have a vague remembrance 
that three stars marked the close of the Sabbath. 
And here in the frosty sky I see a whole host scin¬ 
tillating in the immeasurable depths. The Sabbath 
is over and once more I drag myself to my writing 
desk to pour out the anguish of a tortured spirit. All 
day I have sat as in a dumb trance gazing out beyond 
the izbas and the cabbage fields toward the eternal 
hills. How beautiful and peaceful everything is! 
God, wilt Thou not impart to me the secret of peace ? 

Little did I divine what awaited my eyes when 
they rested fondly on the first sentence of Paul’s 
article. Voi> it was a pronouncement on the Jewish 
question, venomous, scathing, mordant, terrific. It 
was an indictment of the race, lit up with all the 
glow of moral indignation; cruel and slanderous, yet 
noble and righteous in its tone and ideals; base as 
hell, yet pure as heaven; breathing a savagery as 
of Torquemada, and a saintliness as of Tolstoi'. 
Paul in every line, my own noble, bigoted, wrong¬ 
headed Paul. As I read it, my whole frame trem¬ 
bled. A corresponding passion and indignation 
stirred my blood to fever-heat. All my slumbering 
Jewish instincts woke again to fresh life; and I knew 
myself for the weak, miserable wretch that I am. 
To think that a son of mine should thus vilify his 
own race. What can I do? Bozhe moi, what can 



436 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


I do ? How can I stop this horrible, unnatural thing ? 
I dare not open Paul’s eyes to what he is doing. And 
yet it is my duty. ... It is my duty. By that token 
I know I shall not do it. Heaven have pity on me! 

Tuesday. —• Heaven have pity on Paul! Here is 
Nicholas’s promised letter. 


“Dear Demetrius, — I have strange news for you. It is 
quite providential (I use the word without prejudice, as the 
lawyers say) that I came here. But all is well now, so you may 
read what follows without alarm. Last Thursday morning, 
during my purposeful wanderings within Paul’s usual circuit, I 
came face to face with our young gentleman. His eyes stared 
straight at me without seeing me. His face was ghastly white, 
and the lines were rigid as if with some stern determination. 
His lips were moving, but I could not catch his mutterings. He 
held a sealed letter in his hand. I saw the superscription. It 
was addressed to you. Instantly the dread came to my mind 
that he was about to commit suicide, and that this was his fare¬ 
well to you. I followed him. He posted the letter at the post- 
office, turned back, threaded his way like a somnambulist across 
the bridge, without, however, approaching the parapet, walked 
mechanically onward to his own apartments, put the latch-key 
into the house-door, and then fell back in a dead faint — into my 
arms. I took him upstairs, explained what had happened, put 
him to bed, and — I write this from the bedside. For the crisis 
is over now; the brain fever has abated, and he has now nothing 
to do but to get well, though he will be longer about it than a 
young fellow of his age has a right to be. His body is emaciated 
with fasts and vigils and penances. I curse religion when I look 
at him. As if the struggle for life were not hard enough without 
humanity being hampered by these miserable superstitions. 
But you will be wanting to know what is the matter. Well, 
batiushka , what should be the matter but the old, old matter ? 
La femme is, strange to relate, a fine specimen of our own race 









DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


437 


of lovely women, my dear Demetrius. She is a Jewess of the 
most orthodox family in Moscow, and therein lies the crux of 
the situation. (I am not playing upon words, but the phrase is 
doubly significant here.) Of course Paul has not the slightest 
dea I know all this; but of course I have had it from his hot 
lips all the same. As far as I have been able to piece his broken 
utterances together, they have had some stolen love passages, 
each followed by swift remorse on both sides, and — another 
furtive love passage. Paul has been comparing himself to St. 
Anthony, and even to Jesus, when Satan, ce chef admirable , 
spread a first-class dinner in the wilderness. But the poor lad 
must have suffered much behind all his heroics. And what his 
final resolution to give her up cost him is pretty evident. I sup¬ 
pose he must have told you of it in that letter. Isn’t it the 
oddest thing in the world ? Rachel Jacobvina is the girl’s name, 
and her people keep a clothes’ store round the corner, and her 
father is the Parnass (you will remember what that means) of 
his synagogue. She is a sweet little thing; and Paul evidently 
has a taste for other belles than belles-lettres. From what you 
told me of him I fully expected this sort of thing. The poor 
fellow is looking at me now from among his iced bandages with 
a piteous air of resignation to the will of Nicholas Alexandrovitch 
in bringing him back to this world of trouble when he already 
felt his wings sprouting. Poor Paul ! He little dreams what I 
am writing; but he will get over this, and marry some fair, blue¬ 
eyed Circassian with corresponding tastes in fasting, and an 
enthusiastic longing for the Kingdom of God, when the year 
shall be a perpetual Lent. In his failure to realize history, 
he thinks it a crime to adore a Jewish virgin, though he 
spends half his time in adoring the Madonna. How shocked 
he would be if I pointed this out! People who look through 
ecclesiastical spectacles so rarely realize that the Holy Family 
was a Jewish one. But my pen is running away with me, and 
our patient looks thirsty. Proshchai. 

“ Nicholas.” 

“P.S. — There is not the slightest danger of a relapse unless 
the image of this diabolical girl comes before him again. And I 


438 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


keep his attention distracted. Besides, he had finally conquered 
his passion. This illness was at once the seal and the witness 
of his unchangeable resolve. I have heard him repeat the terms 
of the letter of farewell he sent her. It was final.” 

So this was the meaning of your silence; this the 
tragedy that lay behind your simple sentence, “I 
have now conquered all the difficulties which beset 
me at the first.” This was the motive that guided 
your hand to write those bitter lines about our race, 
so that you might henceforth cut yourself off from 
the possibility of allying yourself with it even in 
thought. I understand all now, my poor high- 
mettled boy. How you must have suffered! How 
your pride must have rebelled at the idea that you 
might have to make such a confession to me — little 
knowing I should have hailed it with delight. That 
temptation should have assailed you, too, at such a 
period — when you were publishing your great work 
on the ideals of Holy Russia! Mysterious, indeed, 
are the ways of Providence. And yet why may not 
all be well after all, and Heaven grant me such grace 
as I would willingly sacrifice my life to deserve ? It 
is impossible that my son’s passion can be utterly 
dead. Such fires are only covered up. I will go to 
him and tell him all. The news that he is a Jew 
will revolutionize him. His love will flame up afresh 
and take on the guise and glamour of duty. Love, 
posing as logic, will whisper in his ear that no bars 
of early training can avail to keep him from the race 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


439 


to which he belongs by blood and by his father’s 
faith. In this girl’s eyes he will read God’s message 
of command, and I, God’s message of Peace and 
Reconciliation. The tears are in my eyes; I can 
hardly see to write. The happiness I foresee is too 
great. Blessings on your sweet face, Rachel Jacob- 
vina, my own darling daughter that is to be. To you 
is allotted the blessed task of solving a fearful prob¬ 
lem, of rescuing and reuniting two human lives. 
Yes, Heaven is indeed merciful. To-morrow I start 
for Moscow. 

Thursday. —- How can I write it ? No, there is no 
pity in Heaven. The sky smiles in steely blankness. 
The air cuts like a knife. Paul is well, or as well as 
a convalescent can be. He must have had a heart 
of ice. But it is fortunate he had, seeing what the 
icy fates have wrought. I arrived at Moscow, and 
hurried in a droshky across the well-known bridge to 
Paul’s lodgings. A ghastly procession stopped me. 
Some burlaks were bearing the corpse of a young 
girl who had thrown herself into the ice-laden river. 
A clammy foreboding gathered at my heart, but ere 
I had time to say a word, an old, caftan-clad man, 
with agonized eyes and a white, streaming beard, 
dashed up, pulled off the face-cloth, revealing a 
strange, weird loveliness, uttered a scream which 
yet rings in my ears, threw himself passionately on 
the body, rose up again, murmured something sol¬ 
emnly and resignedly in Hebrew, rent his garments, 


440 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


readjusted the face-cloth, and followed weeping in 
the rear. And from lip to lip, that for once forgot 
to curl in scorn, flew the murmur: “Rachel Jacob- 
vina.” 

Saturday Night. — I slouched into the synagogue 
this morning, the cynosure of suspicious eyes. I 
nearly uncovered my head in forgetfulness. Some¬ 
body offered me a Talith, which I wrapped round 
myself with marked awkwardness. The service 
moved me beyond measure. I have neither the pen 
nor the will to describe my sensations. I was a youth 
again. The intervening decades faded away. Ra¬ 
chel’s father said the Kaddish. The peace of God has 
touched my soul. Paul is asleep. I have made Nich¬ 
olas take his much-needed rest. I am reading the 
Hebrew Psalms. The language comes back to me 
bit by bit. 

Monday. — Paul is sitting up reading — proofs. I 
have been to condole with Rachel’s father, as he sat 
mourning upon the ground. I explained that I was 
a stranger in the town, and had heard of the accident. 
I have given five hundred roubles to the synagogue. 
The whole congregation is buzzing with the generos¬ 
ity of the rich Jewish farmer from the country. For¬ 
tunately there is no danger of Paul hearing anything 
of my doings. He is a prisoner; and Nicholas and 
myself keep watch over him by turns. 

Tuesday. — I have just come from a meeting of 
the Palestine Colonization Society. Heavens, what 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


441 


ideals burn in these breasts supposed to throb only 
with cupidity and cunning! Their souls still turn to 
the Orient, as the needle turns to the pole. And 
how the better-off among them pity their weaker 
brethren! With what enthusiasm they plot and plan 
to get them beyond the frontier into freer countries, 
but chiefly into the centre of all Jewish aspiration, 
the Holy Land! How they wept when I doubled 
their finances at a stroke. My poor, much-wronged 
brethren ! 

****** 
Odessa , Monday. — It is almost a year since I 
closed this book, and now, after a period of peace, 
I am driven to it again. Paul has made an irruption 
into my tranquil household. For eleven months now 
I have lived in this little two-storied house overlook¬ 
ing the roadstead, with Isaac and the ekonomka for 
my sole companions. So long as I could pour my 
troubles into the ear of the venerable old rabbi 
(who was starving for material sustenance when I 
took him, as I was for spiritual), so long I had no 
need of you, my old confidant. But this visit of Paul 
has reopened all my sores. I have smuggled the 
rabbi out of the way; but even if he were here, he 
could not understand the terrible situation. The 
God of Israel alone knows what I feel at having to 
deny Him, at having to hide my faith from my own 
son. He must not stay. The New Year is nigh, 
with its feasts and fasts. Moreover, surrounded as 


442 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


one is by spies, Paul’s presence here may lead to 
discoveries that I am not what the authorities imag¬ 
ine. Perhaps it would have been better if I had 
gone back to the village. But no. There was that 
church-going. A village is so small. In this great 
and bustling seaport I am lost, or comparatively so. 
A few roubles in the ecclesiastical palm, and com¬ 
plete oblivion settles on me. 

To-night I shall know to what I owe this sudden 
visit. Paul is radiant. He plays with his untold news 
like a child with a new toy. He drops all sorts of mys¬ 
terious hints. He frisks around me like a fond spaniel. 
But he reserves his tit-bit for to-night, when the 
tramp of the sailors and the perambulating peasantry 
shall have died away, and we shall be seated cosily 
in my study, smoking our cigarettes, and looking out 
toward the quiet lights of the shipping. Of course it 
is good news—Heaven help me, I fear Paul’s good 
news. Good news that Paul has come all the way 
from St. Petersburg to tell me, which only his own 
lips may tell me, must, if past omens speak truly, be 
terrible. God grant I may survive the telling. 

What a coward I am! Have I not long since 
made up my mind that Paul must go his way and I 
mine ? What difference, then, can his news make to 
me ? He will never know now that I am a Zhit, un¬ 
less he hears it from my dying lips as I utter the dec¬ 
laration of the Unity. I made up my mind to that 
when I came here. Paul threatens to make his 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


443 


mark as a writer on theological subjects. To tell him 
the truth would only sadden him and do him no good; 
while to reveal my own Judaism to the world would 
but serve to damage him and injure his prospects. 
This may seem but a cover for my cowardice, for my 
fear of State reprisals; but it is true for all that. 
Bozhe moi, is it not punishment enough not to be able 
to join my brethren in their worship? I must remain 
here, where I am unknown, practising my religion 
unostentatiously and in secret. The sense of being 
in a Jewish city satisfies my soul. We are here more 
than a fourth of the population. House-rent and fuel 
are very dear, but we thrive and prosper, thanks to 
God. I give to our poor, through Isaac, but they 
hardly want my help. I rejoice in the handsome 
synagogues, though I dare not enter them. Yes, I 
am best here. Why be upset by my boy’s visit ? Paul 
will tell me his news, I shall congratulate him, he 
will go back to the capital, and all will be as before. 

Monday Midnight. — No, all can never be as before. 
One last step remained to divide our lives to all eter¬ 
nity. Voi , Paul has taken it. 

All came off as arranged. We sat together at my 
window. It was a glorious night, and a faint, fresh 
wind blew in from the sea. The lights in the har¬ 
bour twinkled, the stars glistened in the sky. But as 
Paul told me his good news, the whole horizon was 
one great flame before my eyes. He began by re¬ 
capitulating, though with fuller details than was pos- 


444 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


sible by letter, what I knew pretty well already; the 
story of the great success of his book, which had 
been reviewed in all the theological magazines of 
Europe, and had gone through four editions in the 
year, and been translated into German and Italian; 
the story of how he had been encouraged to come to 
St. Petersburg, and how he had prospered on the 
press there. And then came the grand news — he 
was offered the editorship of the Novoe Vremia , the 
great St. Petersburg paper! 

In an instant I realized all it meant, and in my 
horror I almost fainted. Paul would direct this fa¬ 
mous Government and anti-Semitic organ, Paul would 
pen day after day those envenomed leaders, goading 
on the mob to turn and rend their Jewish fellow- 
citizens, denying them the rights of human beings. 
Paul would direct the flood of sarcasm and misrep¬ 
resentation poured forth day after day upon my inof¬ 
fensive brethren. The old anguish with which I had 
read that article a year ago returned to me ; but not 
the old tempest of wrath. By sheer force of will I 
kept myself calm. A great issue was at stake, and 
I nerved myself for the contest. 

“Paul,” said I, “you are a lucky fellow.” I 
kissed him on the brow with icy lips. He saw 
my great emotion, but felt it was but natural. 

“Da” said he, “ I am a lucky fellow. It is a 
great thing. Few men have had such an oppor¬ 
tunity at twenty-five.” 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


445 


“ Nutchozh? And how do you propose to util¬ 

ize it ? ” I asked. 

“Ock, I must conduct the paper on the same gen¬ 
eral lines,” he said; “of course, with improvements.” 

“Amongst the latter the omission of the anti- 
Semitic bias, I hope.” 

He stared at me. “ Certainly not. The propri¬ 
etors make its continuance on the same general 
lines a condition. They are very good. They even 
guard me against possible prosecutions by paying 
a handsome salary to a man of straw. Ish-lui> it 
is a fine berth that I’ve got.” 

Should I tell him the thing was impossible — 
that he was a Jew? No; time for that when all 
other means had failed. “ Och , you have accepted 
it?” I said. 

“ Of course I have, father. Why should I give 
them time to change their minds ? ” 

“ I should have thought you would have con¬ 
sulted me first.” 

“Nu, uzh , I have never consulted you yet about 
accepting work,” he said in a wondering, disap¬ 
pointed tone. 

“ Nuka , but this puts you finally into a career, 
does it not?” 

“Certainly. That is why I accepted it, and I 
thought you would be glad.” 

“That is why you should have refused it. But 
I am glad all the same.” 


446 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


“I do not understand you, father.” 

“ Nuka , golubtchik , listen,” I said in my most 
endearing tone, drawing my arm round his neck. 
“ Your struggles for existence were but struggles 
for the sake of the struggle. You are not as other 
young men. You have succeeded; and the moment 
you win the prize is the moment for retiring grace¬ 
fully, leaving it in the hands of him who needs 
it. Your fight was but a game I allowed you to 
play. You are rich.” 

“ Rich ? ” 

“ Rich! Nearly all my life I have been a 
wealthy man. I own land in every part of Russia; 
I hold shares in all the most successful companies. 
I have kept this knowledge from you so that you 
might enjoy your riches more when you knew the 
truth.” 

“ Rich ? ” He repeated the word again in a dazed 
tone. “Ac/i } why did I not know this before ? ” 

“You had not succeeded. You had not had 
your experience, my son, my dearest Paul. But 
now your work is over, or rather your true work 
begins. Freed from the detestable routine of a 
newspaper office, you shall write your books and 
work out your ideas at leisure, and relieved from 
all material considerations.” 

“Da, it would have been a beautiful ideal — 
once,” he said ; then added fiercely : “ Rich ? And 
I did not know it.” 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


447 


“ But you were the happier for your ignorance.” 

“No, father. The struggle is too terrible. Often 
have I sat and wept. Ish-ltd , time after time my 
book — destined as it was to success — came back 
to me from the publishers. And I could have 
produced it myself all along! ” 

Pangs of remorse agitated me. Had my plan 
been, indeed, a failure ? “ But you have the pride 

of unhelped success.” 

“ And the bitter memories. And once — ” He 
paused. 

“ Once ? ” I said. 

“ Once I loved a girl. She is dead now, so it 
doesn’t matter. There were many and complicated 
obstacles to our union. With money they would 
have been overcome.” 

“ Poor boy! ” I said wonderingly, for I knew 
nothing of this apparently new love episode. “For¬ 
give me, my son, if I have acted mistakenly. Any¬ 
how, from this moment your happiness is my sole 
care.” 

“No,” he said, with sudden determination. “It 
is too late now. You meant it for the best, papa- 
sha. But I do not want the money now. I have 
money of my own — and glory. Why should I 
give up what my own hands have won ? ” 

“ Because I ask it of you, Paul; because I ask 
you to allow me to make reparation for the mis¬ 
chief I have done.” 


448 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


“ The truest reparation will be to let things go 
unrepaired,” he said, with a touch of sarcasm. “ I 
shall be happier as editor of this paper. What 
finer medium for my ideas than a great news¬ 
paper ? What more potent lever to my hand for 
raising Holy Russia to a yet higher plane ? No, 
father. Let bygones be bygones. Give my share 
of your wealth to a society for helping struggling 
talent. I struggle no longer. Leave me to go on 
in the path my pen has carved out.” 

I fell at his feet and begged him to let me have 
my way, but some obstinate demon seemed to have 
taken possession of his breast. I opened my desk 
and showered bank-notes upon him. He spurned 
them, and one flew out into the night. Neither of us 
put out a hand to arrest its flight. 

I saw that nothing but the truth had any chance to 
alter his resolve. But I played one more card before 
resorting to this dangerous weapon. 

“ Listen, my own dearest Paul,” I burst out. “ If 
money will not tempt you, let a father’s petition per¬ 
suade you. Learn, then, that I dread your taking 
this position because you will perpetually have to 
attack the Jews — ” 

“As they deserve,” he put in. 

“ Be it so. But I — I have a kindness for this 
oppressed race.” 

He looked at me in silence, as if awaiting further 


DIARY OF A ME SHU MAD 


449 


explanation. I gave it, blurting out the shameful lie 
with ill-concealed confusion. 

“ Once upon a time I — I loved a Jewess. I could 
not marry her, of course. But ever since that time I 
have had a soft place in my heart for her unhappy 
race.” 

A look of surprise flashed into Paul’s eyes. Then 
his face grew tender. He took my hand in his. 

“Father, we have a common sorrow,” he said. 
“The girl I spoke of was a Jewess.” 

“ How ? ” I exclaimed, surprised in my turn. It 
was the same affair, then. 

“Yes, she was a Jewess. But I taught her the 
truth. Christ was revealed to her prisoned soul. She 
would have fled with me if we had had the means, 
and if I had been able to support her in some other 
country. But she did not dare be baptized and stay 
in Moscow or anywhere near. She said her father 
would have killed her. The only alternative was for 
me to embrace Judaism. Impossible as you may 
think it, father, and I confess it to my eternal shame, 
at the very period I was correcting the proofs of my 
book, I was wrestling with a temptation to embrace 
this Satanic heresy. But I conquered the tempta¬ 
tion. It was easy to conquer. To renounce the 
faith which was my blessed birthright would, as you 
know, have cost me dear. Selfishness warred for 
once on the side of salvation. Rachel wished to fly 


450 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


with me. I knew she would have been poor and 
unhappy. I refused to take advantage of her girl¬ 
ish impetuousness. I heard afterward that she 
had drowned herself.” The tears rained down his 
cheeks. 

“ We had arranged to wait till I could save a stock of 
money. Voi, the delay undid us. One day Rachel’s 
father called on me. He had got wind of our secret. 
He fell at my feet and tore his hair, and wept and 
conjured me not to darken his home and his life. A 
Jewess could only wed a Jew, he said. If I had only 
been born a Jew all would have been well. But his 
Rachel had, perhaps, talked of becoming a Christian. 
Did I not know that was impossible ? As well expect 
the sheep to howl like the wolf. Blood was thicker 
than baptismal water. Her heart would always 
cleave to her own religion. And was my love so 
blind as not to see that even if she spoke of Chris¬ 
tianity it was only to please me ? that she only 
kissed the crucifix that I might kiss her, and knelt to 
the Virgin that I might kneel to her ? At home, he 
swore it with fearful oaths, she was always bitterly 
sarcastic at the expense of the true faith. I believed 
him. My God, I believed him ! For at times I had 
feared it myself. I would be no party to such carnal 
blasphemy, and charged him with a note of farewell. 
When he went I felt as if I had escaped from a terri¬ 
ble temptation. I fell on my knees and thanked the 
saints.” 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


451 


“ But why did you not tell me this at the time ? ” I 
cried in intolerable anguish. 

il Nu; to what end? It would only have worried 
you. I did not know you were rich.” 

“And at this time you offered to send me money! ” 
I said, with sudden recollection. 

“ Since I had not enough, you might as well have 
some of it. Anyhow, father, you see all this has 
made no difference to me. I shall never marry now, 
of course; but it hasn’t altered the opinion I have 
always had of the Jews — rather corroborated it. 
Rachel told me enough of the superstitious slavery 
amid which she was forced to live. I have no doubt 
now that her father lied. But for his pigheaded 
tribalism, Rachel would have been alive to-day. So 
why your love for a Jewish girl should make you 
tender to the race I do not see, dearest father. 
There are always exceptions to everything— Rachel 
was one ; the woman you loved was another. And 
now it is very late ; I think I will go to bed.” 

He kissed me and went out at the door. Then he 
came back and put his head inside again. A sweet, 
sad, winning smile lit up his pale, thoughtful face. 

“ I will put you on the free list of the Novoe 
Vremia , father,” he said. “ Good-night, papasha” 
What could I say ? What could I do ? I called 
up a smile to my trembling lips. 

“Good-night, Paul,” I said. 

I shall never tell him now. 



452 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


Tuesday , 3 a.m. — I reopen these pages to note an 
ironic climax to this bitter day. Through the ex¬ 
citement of Paul’s coming I had not read my letters. 
After sitting here in a numb trance for hours, I sud¬ 
denly bethought me of them. One is from my busi¬ 
ness man, informing me that he has just sold the 
South American stock, respecting which I gave him 
carte blanche. I go to bed richer by five thousand 
roubles. 

****** 
Odessa , Wednesday Night. — Six months have 
passed. I am on the free list of the Novoe Vre- 
mia. Almost every day brings me a fresh stab as 
I read. But I am a “constant reader.” It is my 
penance, and I bear it as such. After a long silence, 
I have just had a letter from Nicholas Alexandro- 
vitch, and I reopen my diary to note it. He is about 
to marry a prosperous widow, and is going over to 
Catholicism. He writes he is very happy. Lucky, 
soulless being. He does not know he will be a richer 
man when I die. Happily, I am ready, though it 
were to-day. My peace is made, I hope, with God 
and man, though Paul knows nothing even now. 
He could not fail to learn it, though, if he came to 
Odessa again. I have bribed the spies and the clergy 
heavily. Thanks to their silence, I am one of the 
most prominent Jews of the town, and nobody dreams 
of connecting me with the trenchant editor of the 
Novoe Vremia. I see now that I could have acted 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


453 


so all along, if I had not been such a coward. But I 
keep Paul away. It is my last cowardice. In a 
postscript Nicholas writes that Paul’s articles are 
causing a great sensation in the remotest parts of 
Russia. Alas, I know it. Are there not anti-Jewish 
riots in all parts, encouraged by cruel Government 
measures ? Do not the local newspapers everywhere 
reproduce Paul’s printed firebrands ? Have I not the 
pleasure of coming across them again in our own 
Odessa papers, in the Wiertnik and the Listok? I 
should not wonder if we had an outbreak here. 
There was a little affray yesterday in the pereouloks 
of the Jewish quarter, though we are quiet enough 
down this way. . . . Great God! What is that 
noise I hear? . . . Yes! it is! it is! “Down with 
the Zhits ! Down with the Zhits ! ” There is red 
on the horizon. Bozhe moi! It is flame! Voi! 
They are pillaging the Jewish quarter. The sun 
sinks in blood, as on that unhappy day among the 
village hills. . . . Ach ! Paul, Paul! Why did I 
not stop your murderous pen ? . . . But if not you, 
another would have written. ... No, that is no 
excuse. . . . Forgive me, O God, I have been weak. 
Ever weak and cowardly from the day I first de¬ 
serted Thee, even unto this day. ... I am not 
worthy of my blood, of my race. . . . They are 
coming this way. It goes through me like a knife. 
“ Down with the Zhits ! Down with the Zhits ! ” 
And now I see them. They are mad, drunk with 



454 


DIARY OF A MESHUMAD 


the vodka they have stolen from the Jewish inns. 
Great God! They have knives and guns. And 
their leader is flourishing a newspaper and shout¬ 
ing out something from it. There are soldiers among 
them, and sailors, native and foreign, and mad muz¬ 
hiks. Where are the police ? . . . The mob is pass¬ 
ing under my window. God pity me , it is Paid's 
words they are shouting. . . . They have passed. 
No one thinks of me. Thank God, I am safe. I 
am safe from these demons. What a narrow escape ! 
. . . Ah, God, they have captured Rabbi Isaac and 
are dragging him along by his white beard toward 
the barracks. My place is by his side. I will rouse 
my brethren. We are not a few. We will turn on 
these dogs and rend them. Proshcha'i , my loved 
diary. Farewell! I go to proclaim the Unity. 


X 


“INCURABLE” 




X 


“INCURABLE 


“Cast off among the dead\ like the slain that lie in the grave. 
Whom Thou rememberest no more , and they are cut offfrom Thy 
hand. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit , in dark places , in 
the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me and Thou hast afflicted 
me with all Thy waves. Thou hast put mine acquaintance far 
from me; Thou hast made me an abomination unto them; I am 
shut uf and / cannot come forth. Mine eye wasteth away by 
reason of affliction. I have called daily upon Thee , O Lord, I 
have spread forth my hands unto Thee." — Eighty-eighth Psalm. 

There was a restless air about the Refuge. In 
a few minutes the friends of the patients would be 
admitted. The Incurables would hear the latest 
gossip of the Ghetto, for the world was still very- 
much with these abortive lives, avid of sensations, 
Jewish to the end. It was an unpretentious institu¬ 
tion— two corner houses knocked together — near 
the east lung of London; supported mainly by the 
poor at a penny a week, and scarcely recognized by 
the rich; so that paraplegia and vertigo and rachitis 
and a dozen other hopeless diseases knocked hope¬ 
lessly at its narrow portals. But it was a model 
institution all the same, and the patients lacked for 
nothing except freedom from pain. There was even 
457 


458 


'INCURABLE 


a miniature synagogue for their spiritual needs, with 
the women’s compartment religiously railed off from 
the men’s, as if these grotesque ruins of sex might 
still distract each other’s devotions. 

Yet the Rabbis knew human nature. The sprightly, 
hydrocephalous, paralytic Leah had had the chair she 
inhabited carried down into the men’s sitting-room 
to beguile the moments, and was smiling fascinat¬ 
ingly upon the deaf blind man, who had the Braille 
Bible at his fingers’ ends, and read on as stolidly as 
St. Anthony. Mad Mo had strolled vacuously into 
the ladies’ ward, and, indifferent to the pretty white- 
aproned Christian nurses, was loitering by the side 
of a weird, hatchet-faced cripple with a stiletto¬ 
shaped nose supporting big spectacles. Like most 
of the patients she was up and dressed; only a few 
of the white pallets ranged along the walls were 
occupied. 

“ Leah says she’d be quite happy if she could 
walk like you,” said Mad Mo in complimentary tones. 
“ She always says Milly walks so beautiful. She 
says you can walk the whole length of the garden.” 
Milly, huddled in her chair, smiled miserably. 

“You’re crying again, Rebecca,” protested a dark¬ 
eyed, bright-faced dwarf in excellent English, as she 
touched her friend’s withered hand. “You are in 
the blues again. Why, that page is all blistered.” 

“No — I feel so nice,” said the sad-eyed Russian 
in her quaint musical accent. “ You sail not tink 


“INCURABLE 


459 


I cry because I am not happy. Ven I read sad tings 
— like my life — den only I am happy.” 

The dwarf gave a short laugh that made her pen¬ 
dent earrings oscillate. “ I thought you were brood¬ 
ing over your love affairs,” she said. 

“ Me ! ” cried Rebecca. “ I lost too young my 
leg to be in love. No, it is Psalm eighty-eight dat 
I brood over. ‘ I am afflicted and ready to die from 
my yout’ up.’ Yes, I vas only a girl ven I had to 
go to Konigsberg to find a doctor to cut off my leg. 
‘ Lover and friend hast dou put far from me, and 
mine acquaintance into darkness ! ’ ” 

Her face shone ecstatic. 

“ Hush ! ” whispered the dwarf, with a warning 
nudge and a slight nod in the direction of a neigh¬ 
bouring waterbed on which a pale, rigid, middle-aged 
woman lay, with shut sleepless eyes. 

“Se cannot understand Englis’,” said the Russian 
girl proudly. 

“ Don’t be so sure, look how the nurses here have 
picked up Yiddish ! ” 

Rebecca shook her head incredulously. “ Sarah is 
a Polis’ woman,” she said. “ For years dey are in 
England and dey learn noting.” 

“Ich bin krank! Krank! Krank! ” suddenly 
moaned a shrivelled Polish grandmother — an ad¬ 
vanced centenarian — as if to corroborate the girl’s 
contention. She was squatting monkey-like on her 
bed, every now and again murmuring her querulous 


460 


“INCURABLE 


burden of sickness, and jabbering at the nurses to 
shut all the windows. Fresh air she objected to 
as vehemently as if it were butter or some other 
heterodox dainty. 

Hard upon her crooning came bloodcurdling 
screams from the room above, sounds that reminded 
the visitor he was not in a “ Barnum ” show, that the 
monstrosities were genuine. Pretty Sister Margaret 
— not yet indurated — thrilled with pity, as before 
her inner vision rose the ashen perspiring face of the 
palsied sufferer, who sat quivering all the long day in 
an easy-chair, her swollen jelly-like hands resting on 
cotton-wool pads, an air-pillow between her knees, 
her whole frame racked at frequent intervals by fierce 
spasms of pain, her only diversion faint blurred re¬ 
flections of episodes of the street in the glass of a 
framed picture; yet morbidly suspicious of slow 
poison in her drink, and cursed with an incurable 
vitality. 

Meantime Sarah lay silent, bitter thoughts moving 
beneath her white, impassive face like salt tides below 
a frozen surface. It was a strong, stern face, telling 
of a present of pain, and faintly hinting at a past of 
prettiness. She seemed alone in the populated ward, 
and indeed the world was bare for her. Most of her 
life had been spent in the Warsaw Ghetto, where she 
was married at sixteen, nineteen years before. Her 
only surviving son — a youth whom the English at¬ 
mosphere had not improved — had sailed away to 


“INCURABLE ” 


461 


trade with the Kaffirs. And her husband had not 
been to see her for a fortnight! 

When the visitors began to arrive, her torpor van¬ 
ished. She eagerly raised the half of her that was 
not paralyzed, partially sitting up. But gradually 
expectation died out of her large gray eyes. There 
was a buzz of talk in the room — the hydrocephalous 
girl was the gay centre of a group; the Polish grand¬ 
mother who cursed her grandchildren when they 
didn’t come and when they did, was denouncing their 
neglect of her to their faces; everybody had some¬ 
body to kiss or quarrel with. One or two acquaint¬ 
ances approached the bed-ridden wife, too, but she 
would speak no word, too proud to ask after her hus¬ 
band, and wincing under the significant glances oc¬ 
casionally cast in her direction. By and by she had 
the red screen placed round her bed, which gave her 
artificial walls and a quasi-privacy. Her husband 
would know where to look for her — 

“ Woe is me! ” wailed her centenarian country¬ 
woman, rocking to and fro. “ What sin have I com¬ 
mitted to get such grandchildren? You only come 
to see if the old grandmother isn’t dead yet. So sick ! 
So sick ! So sick ! ” 

Twilight filled the wards. The white beds looked 
ghostly in the darkness. The last visitor departed. 
Sarah’s husband had not yet come. 

“ He is not well, Mrs. Kretznow,” Sister Margaret 
ventured to say in her best Yiddish. “ Or he is busy 


462 


‘INCURABLE 


working. Work is not so slack any more.” Alone 
in the institution she shared Sarah’s ignorance of the 
Kretznow scandal. Talk of it died before her youth 
and sweetness. 

“ He would have written,” said Sarah sternly. 
“ He is awearied of me. I have lain here a year. 
Job’s curse is on me.” 

“ Shall I to him ” — Sister Margaret paused to 
excogitate the Yiddish word — “ write ? ” 

“ No ! He hears me knocking at his heart.” 

They had flashes of strange savage poetry, these 
crude yet complex souls. Sister Margaret, who was 
still liable to be startled, murmured feebly, “ But — ” 

“ Leave me in peace! ” with a cry like that of a 
wounded animal. 

The matron gently touched the novice’s arm and 
drew her away. “/ will write to him,” she whis¬ 
pered. 

Night fell, but sleep fell only for some. Sarah 
Kretznow tossed in a hell of loneliness. Ah, surely 
her husband had not forgotten her — surely she 
would not lie thus till death — that far-off death her 
strong religious instinct would forbid her hastening! 
She had gone into the Refuge to save him the con¬ 
stant sight of her helplessness and the cost of her 
keep. Was she now to be cut off forever from the 
sight of his strength ? 

The next day he came — by special invitation. His 
face was sallow, rimmed with swarthy hair; his un- 


“INCURABLE 


463 


der lip was sensuous. He hung his head, half veiling 
the shifty eyes. 

Sister Margaret ran to tell his wife. Sarah’s face 
sparkled. 

“ Put up the screen! ” she murmured, and in its 
shelter drew her husband’s head to her bosom and 
pressed her lips to his hair. 

But he, surprised into indiscretion, murmured : “ I 
thought thou wast dying.” 

A beautiful light came into the gray eyes. 

“ Thy heart told thee right, Herzel, my life. I 
was dying — for a sight of thee.” 

“ But the matron wrote to me pressingly,” he 
blurted out. He felt her breast heave convulsively 
under his face; with her hands she thrust him away. 

“ God’s fool that I am — I should have known; 
to-day is not visiting day. They have compassion 
on me — they see my sorrows — it is public talk.” 

His pulse seemed to stop. “ They have talked to 
thee of me,” he faltered. 

“ I did not ask their pity. But they saw how I 
suffered— one cannot hide one’s heart.” 

“ They have no right to talk,” he muttered in 
sulky trepidation. 

“They have every right,” she rejoined sharply. 
“If thou hadst come to see me even once — why 
hast thou not ? ” 

“I — I — have been travelling in the country with 
cheap jewellery. The tailoring is so slack.” 


464 


‘INCURABLE 


“ Look me in the eyes ! Law of Moses ? No, it 
is a lie. God shall forgive thee. Why hast thou not 
come ? ” 

“ I have told thee.” 

“ Tell that to the Sabbath Fire-Woman ! Why hast 
thou not come ? Is it so very much to spare me an 
hour or two a week ? If I could go out like some of 
the patients, I would come to thee. But I have tired 
thee out utterly— ” 

“ No, no, Sarah,” he murmured uneasily. 

“ Then why— ? ” 

He was covered with shame and confusion. His 
face was turned away. “ I did not like to come,” he 
said desperately. 

“ Why not ? ” Crimson patches came and went 
on her white cheeks; her heart beat madly. 

“ Surely thou canst understand!” 

“Understand what? I speak of green and thou 
answerest of blue ! ” 

“ I answer as thou askest.” 

“ Thou answerest not at all.” 

“No answer is also an answer,” he snarled, driven 
to bay. “Thou understandest well enough. Thy¬ 
self saidst it was public talk.” 

“ Ah—h—h ! ” in a stifled shriek of despair. Her 
intuition divined everything. The shadowy, sinister 
suggestions she had so long beat back by force of 
will took form and substance. Her head fell back 
on the pillow, the eyes closed. 


‘INCURABLE 


465 


He stayed on, bending awkwardly over her. 

“ So sick! So sick! So sick! ” moaned the 
wizened grandmother. 

“Thou sayest they have compassion on thee in 
their talk,” he murmured at last, half deprecatingly, 
half resentfully ; “ have they none on me ? ” 

Her silence chilled him. “But thou hast compas¬ 
sion, Sarah,” he urged. “ Thou understandest.” 

Presently she reopened her eyes. 

“ Thou art not gone ? ” she murmured. 

“No — thou seest I am not tired of thee, Sarah, 
my life ! Only—” 

“ Wilt thou wash my skin, and not make me wet ? ” 
she interrupted bitterly. “ Go home. Go home to 
her! ” 

“ I will not go home.” 

“ Then go under like Korah.” 

He shuffled out. That night her lonely hell was 
made lonelier by the opening of a peep-hole into 
Paradise — a paradise of Adam and Eve and for¬ 
bidden fruit. For days she preserved a stony silence 
toward the sympathy of the inmates. Of what avail 
words against the flames of jealousy in which she 
writhed ? 

He lingered about the passage on the next visiting 
day, vaguely remorseful, but she would not see him. 
So he went away, vaguely indignant, and his new 
housemate comforted him, and he came no more. 

When you lie on your back all day and all night 


466 


«INCURABLE 


you have time to think, especially if you do not sleep. 
A situation presents itself in many lights from dawn 
to dusk and from dusk to dawn. One such light 
flashed on the paradise, and showed it to her as 
but the portico of purgatory. Her husband would 
be damned in the next world, even as she was in 
this. His soul would be cut off from among its 
people. 

On this thought she brooded till it loomed horribly, 
in her darkness. And at last she dictated a letter to 
the matron, asking Herzel to come and see her. 

He obeyed, and stood shame-faced at her side, 
fidgeting with his peaked cap. Her hard face 
softened momentarily at the sight of him, her bosom 
heaved, suppressed sobs swelled her throat. 

“ Thou hast sent for me ? ” he murmured. 

“Yes — perhaps thou didst again imagine I was 
on my death-bed! ” she replied, with bitter irony. 

“It is not so, Sarah. I would have come of myself 
— only thou wouldst not see my face.” 

“ I have seen it for twenty years — it is another’s 
turn now.” 

He was silent. 

“ It is true all the same — I am on my death-bed.” 

He started. A pang shot through his breast. He 
darted an agitated glance at her face. 

“ Is it not so ? In this bed I shall die. But God 
knows how many years I shall lie in it.” 

Her calm gave him an uncanny shudder. 


‘INCURABLE 


467 


“And till the Holy One, blessed be He, takes me, 
thou wilt live a daily sinner.” 

“ I am not to blame. God has stricken me. I am 
a young man.” 

“Thou art to blame!” Her eyes flashed fire. 
“ Blasphemer ! Life is sweet to thee — yet per¬ 
chance thou wilt die before me.” 

His face grew livid. “ I am a young man,” he 
repeated tremulously. 

“ Dost thou forget what Rabbi Eliezer said ? 
* Repent one day before thy death’—-that is to-day, 
for who knows ? ” 

“ What wouldst thou have me do ? ” 

“ Give up — ” 

“No, no,” he interrupted. “It is useless. I can¬ 
not. I am so lonely.” 

“ Give up,” she repeated inexorably, “ thy wife.” 

“ What sayest thou ? My wife ! But she is not 
my wife. Thou art my wife.” 

“ Even so. Give me up. Give me Get (divorce).” 

His breath failed, his heart thumped at the sug¬ 
gestion. 

“Give thee Get /” he whispered. 

“ Yes. Why didst thou not send me a bill of 
divorcement when I left thy home for this ? ” 

He averted his face. “ I thought of it,” he stam¬ 
mered. “ And then — ” 

“And then?” He seemed to see a sardonic glitter 
in the gray eyes. 


468 


‘INCURABLE 


“I — I was afraid.” 

“ Afraid ! ” She laughed in grim mirthlessness. 
“ Afraid of a bed-ridden woman ! ” 

“ I was afraid it would make thee unhappy.” The 
sardonic gleam melted into softness, then became 
more terrible than before. 

“ And so thou hast made me happy instead! ” 

“ Stab me not more than I merit. I did not think 
people would be cruel enough to tell thee.” 

“Thine own lips told me.” 

“Nay — by my soul,” he cried, startled. 

“Thine eyes told me, then.” 

“ I feared so,” he said, turning them away. 
“ When she came into my house, I — I dared not go 
to see thee — that was why I did not come, though I 
always meant to, Sarah, my life. I feared to look 
thee in the eyes. I foresaw they would read the se¬ 
cret in mine—so I was afraid.” 

“Afraid!” she repeated bitterly. “Afraid I would 
scratch them out! Nay, they are good eyes. Have 
they not seen my heart? For twenty years they 
have been my light. . . . Those eyes and mine have 
seen our children die.” 

Spasmodic sobs came thickly now. Swallowing 
them down, she said, “And she—did she not ask 
thee to give me Get ? ” 

“ Nay, she was willing to go without. She said 
thou wast as one dead — look not thus at me. It is 
the will of God. It was for thy sake, too, Sarah, 


1 INCURABLE 


469 


that she did not become my wife by law. She, too, 
would have spared thee the knowledge of her.” 

“Yes; ye have both tender hearts! She is a 
mother in Israel, and thou art a spark of our father 
Abraham.” 

“Thou dost not believe what I say?” 

“ I can disbelieve it, and still remain a Jewess.” 

Then, satire boiling over into passion, she cried 
vehemently, “ We are threshing empty ears. Think- 
est thou I am not aware of the Judgments — I, the 
granddaughter of Reb Shloumi (the memory of the 
righteous for a blessing) ? Thinkest thou I am ig¬ 
norant thou couldst not obtain a Get against me — 
me who have borne thee children, who have wrought 
no evil? I speak not of the Beth-Din, for in this 
impious country they are loath to follow the Judg¬ 
ments, and from the English Beth-Din thou wouldst 
find it impossible to obtain the Get in any case, even 
though thou didst not marry me in this country, nor 
according to its laws. I speak of our own Rabbonim 
— thou knowest even the Maggid would not give 
thee Get merely because thy wife is bed-ridden. 
That — that is what thou wast afraid of.” 

“But if thou art willing, — ” he replied eagerly, 
ignoring her scornful scepticism. 

His readiness to accept the sacrifice was salt upon 
her wounds. 

“Thou deservest I should let thee burn in the 
lowest Gehenna,” she cried. 


470 


“INCURABLE 


“The Almighty is more merciful than thou,” he 
answered. “ It is He that hath ordained it is not 
good for man to live alone. And yet men shun me 
— people talk — and she — she may leave me to my 
loneliness again.” His voice faltered with self-pity. 
“ Here thou hast friends, nurses, visitors. I — I 
have nothing. True, thou didst bear me children, 
but they withered as by the evil eye. My only son 
is across the ocean; he hath no love for me or 
thee.” 

The recital of their common griefs softened her 
toward him. 

“ Go ! ” she whispered. “ Go and send me the 
Get. Go to the Maggid, he knew my grandfather. 
He is the man to arrange it for thee with his friends. 
Tell him it is my wish.” 

“ God shall reward thee. How can I thank thee 
for giving thy consent ? ” 

“What else have I to give thee, my Herzel, I who 
eat the bread of strangers ? Truly says the Proverb, 
* When one begs of a beggar the Herr God laughs ! ’ ” 

“ I will send thee the Get as soon as possible.” 

“ Thou art right, I am a thorn in thine eye. Pluck 
me out quickly.” 

“ Thou wilt not refuse the Get> when it comes ? ” 
he replied apprehensively. 

“Is it not a wife’s duty to submit?” she asked 
with grim irony. “Nay, have no fear. Thou shalt 
have no difficulty in serving the Get upon me. I 


'INCURABLE 


471 


will not throw it in the messenger’s face. . . . And 
thou wilt marry her ? ” 

“ Assuredly. People will no longer talk. And 
she must needs bide with me. It is my one desire.” 

“ It is mine likewise. Thou must atone and save 
thy soul.” 

He lingered uncertainly. 

“ And thy dowry ? ” he said at last. “ Thou wilt 
not make claim for compensation ? ” 

“Be easy — I scarce know where my Cesubah 
(marriage certificate) is. What need have I of 
money? As thou sayest, I have all I want. I do 
not even desire to purchase a grave — lying already 
so long in a charity-grave. The bitterness is over.” 

He shivered. “Thou art very good to me,” he 
said. “ Good-bye.” 

He stooped down — she drew the bedclothes fren- 
ziedly over her face. 

“ Kiss me not! ” 

“ Good-bye, then,” he stammered. “ God be good 
to thee! ” He moved away. 

“ Herzel! ” She had uncovered her face with a 
despairing cry. He slouched back toward her, per¬ 
turbed, dreading she would retract. 

“ Do not send it — bring it thyself. Let me take 
it from thy hand.” 

A lump rose in his throat. “ I will bring it,” he 
said brokenly. 

The long days of pain grew longer — the summer 


472 


INCURABLE 


was coming, harbingered by sunny days that flooded 
the wards with golden mockery. The evening Her- 
zel brought the Get , Sarah could have read every 
word on the parchment plainly, if her eyes had not 
been blinded by tears. 

She put out her hand toward her husband, groping 
for the document he bore. He placed it in her burn¬ 
ing palm. The fingers closed automatically upon it, 
then relaxed, and the paper fluttered to the floor. 
But Sarah was no longer a wife. 

Herzel was glad to hide his burning face by stoop¬ 
ing for the fallen bill of divorcement. He was long 
picking it up. When his eyes met hers again, she 
had propped herself up in her bed. Two big round 
tears trickled down her cheeks, but she received the 
parchment calmly and thrust it into her bosom. 

“ Let it lie there,” she said stonily, “ there where 
thy head hath lain. Blessed be the true Judge.” 

“ Thou art not angry with me, Sarah ? ” 

“ Why should I be angry ? She was right — I am 
but a dead woman. Only no one may say Kaddish 
for me, no one may pray for the repose of my soul. 
I am not angry, Herzel. A wife should light the 
Sabbath candles, and throw in the fire the morsel of 
dough. But thy home was desolate, there was none 
to do these things. Here I have all I need. Now 
thou wilt be happy, too.” 

“Thou hast been a good wife, Sarah,” he mur¬ 
mured, touched. 


‘INCURABLE 


473 


“ Recall not the past; we are strangers now,” she 
said, with recurrent harshness. 

“ But I may come and see thee — sometimes.” He 
had stirrings of remorse as the moment of final 
parting came. 

“ Wouldst thou reopen my wounds ? ” 

“ Farewell, then.” 

He put out his hand timidly; she seized it and 
held it passionately. 

“Yes, yes, Herzel! Do not leave me! Come 
and see me here — as a friend, an acquaintance, a 
man I used to know. The others are thoughtless — 
they forget me — I shall lie here — perhaps the 
Angel of Death will forget me, too.” Her grasp 
tightened till it hurt him acutely. 

“Yes, I will come — I will come often,” he said, 
with a sob of physical pain. 

Her clasp loosened, she dropped his hand. 

“ But not till thou art married,” she said. 

“ Be it so.” 

“ Of course thou must have a ‘ still wedding.’ The 
English synagogue will not marry thee.” 

“ The Maggid will marry me.” 

“Thou wilt show me her Cesubah when thou 
comest next ? ” 

“Yes — I will contrive to get it from her.” 

A week passed — he brought the marriage cer¬ 
tificate. 

Outwardly she was calm. She glanced through 


474 


“INCURABLE 


it. “God be thanked/’ she said, and handed it 
back. They chatted of indifferent things, of the 
doings of the neighbours. When he was going, she 
said, “ Thou wilt come again ? ” 

“Yes, I will come again.” 

“ Thou art so good to spend thy time on me thus. 
But thy wife — will she not be jealous ? ” 

He stared, bewildered by her strange, eerie mo¬ 
ments. 

“ Jealous of thee ? ” he murmured. 

She took it in its contemptuous sense and her 
white lips twitched. But she only said, “ Is she 
aware thou hast come here ? ” 

He shrugged his shoulders. “ Do I know ? I 
have not told her.” 

“Tell her.” 

“ As thou wishest.” 

There was a pause. Presently the woman spoke. 

“ Wilt thou not bring her to see me ? Then she 
will know that thou hast no love left for me — ” 

He flinched as at a stab. After a painful mo¬ 
ment he said: “Art thou in earnest?” 

“I am no marriage-jester. Bring her to me — 
will she not come to see an invalid ? It is a mitzvah 
(good deed) to visit the sick. It will wipe out her 
trespass.” 

“ She shall come.’' 

She came. Sarah stared at her for an instant 
with poignant curiosity, then her eyelids drooped to 


“INCURABLE 


475 


shut out the dazzle of her youth and freshness. 
Herzel’s wife moved awkwardly and sheepishly. 
But she was beautiful — a buxom, comely country 
girl from a Russian village, with a swelling bust and 
a cheek rosy with health and confusion. 

Sarah’s breast was racked by a thousand needles. 
But she found breath at last. 

“God bless — thee, Mrs. — Kretznow,” she said 
gaspingly. 

She took the girl’s hand. 

“ How good thou art to come and see a sick 
creature.” 

“ My husband willed it,” the new wife said in dep¬ 
recation. She had a simple, stupid air that did not 
seem wholly due to the constraint of the strange 
situation. 

“ Thou wast right to obey. Be good to him, my 
child. For three years he waited on me, when I lay 
helpless. He has suffered much. Be good to him ! ” 

With an impulsive movement she drew the girl’s 
head down to her and kissed her on the lips. Then 
with an anguished cry of “ Leave me for to-day,” she 
jerked the blanket over her face and burst into tears. 
She heard the couple move hesitatingly away. The 
girl’s beauty shone on her through the opaque cover¬ 
ings. 

“ O God ! ” she wailed. “ God of Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob, let me die now. For the merits of the 
Patriarchs take me soon, take me soon.” 


476 


“INCURABLE 


Her vain passionate prayer, muffled by the bed¬ 
clothes, was wholly drowned by ear-piercing shrieks 
from the ward above — screams of agony mingled 
with half-articulate accusations of attempted poison¬ 
ing— the familiar paroxysm of the palsied woman 
who clung to life. 

The thrill passed again through Sister Margaret. 
She uplifted her sweet humid eyes. 

“ Ah, Christ! ” she whispered. “ If I could die for 
her!” 


XI 


THE SABBATH-BREAKER 




XI 

THE SABBATH-BREAKER 

The moment came near for the Polish centenarian 
grandmother to die. From the doctor’s statement 
it appeared she had only a bad quarter of an hour to 
live. Her attack had been sudden, and the grand¬ 
children she loved to scold could not be present. 

She had already battled through the great wave of 
pain, and was drifting beyond the boundaries of her 
earthly Refuge. The nurses, forgetting the trouble 
her querulousness and her overweening dietary scru¬ 
ples had cost them, hung over the bed on which 
the shrivelled entity lay. They did not know she was 
living again through the one great episode of her 
life. 

Nearly forty years back, when (though already 
hard upon seventy and a widow) a Polish village was 
all her horizon, she received a letter. It arrived on 
the eve of Sabbath on a day of rainy summer. It 
was from her little boy —her only boy — who kept 
a country inn seven-and-thirty miles away, and had 
i family. She opened the letter with feverish anxiety. 
Her son — her Kaddish — was the apple of her eye. 

479 



480 


THE SABBATH-BREAKER 


The old woman eagerly perused the Hebrew script, 
from right to left. Then weakness overcame her 
and she nearly fell. 

Embedded casually enough in the four pages was a 
passage that stood out for her in letters of blood. “ I 
am not feeling very well lately ; the weather is so 
oppressive and the nights are misty. But it is nothing 
serious; my digestion is a little out of order, that’s 
all.” There were roubles for her in the letter, but 
she let them fall to the floor unheeded. Panic fear, 
travelling quicker than the tardy post of those days, 
had brought rumour of a sudden outbreak of cholera 
in her son’s district. Already alarm for her boy had 
surged about her heart all day; the letter confirmed 
her worst apprehensions. Even if the first touch of 
the cholera-fiend was not actually on him when he 
wrote, still he was by his own confession in that con¬ 
dition in which the disease takes easiest grip. By 
this time he was on a bed of sickness — nay, perhaps 
on his death-bed, if not dead. Even in those days 
the little grandmother had lived beyond the common 
span ; she had seen many people die, and knew that 
the Angel of Death does not always go about his 
work leisurely. In an epidemic his hands are too full 
to enable him to devote much attention to each case. 
Maternal instinct tugged at her heart-strings, drawing 
her toward her boy. The end of the letter seemed 
impregnated with special omen — “ Come and see me 
soon, dear little mother. I shall be unable to get to 


THE SABBATH-BREAKER 


481 


see you for some time.” Yes, she must go at once 
— who knew but that it would be the last time she 
would look upon his face ? 

But then came a terrible thought to give her pause. 
The Sabbath was just “in” — a moment ago. Driv¬ 
ing, riding, or any manner of journeying was 
prohibited during the next twenty-four hours. Fran¬ 
tically she reviewed the situation. Religion permitted 
the violation of the Sabbath on one condition — if 
life was to be saved. By no stretch of logic could 
she delude herself into the belief her son’s recovery 
hinged upon her presence — nay, analyzing the case 
with the cruel remorselessness of a scrupulous con¬ 
science, she saw his very illness was only a plausible 
hypothesis. No; to go to him now were beyond 
question to profane the Sabbath. 

And yet beneath all the reasoning, her conviction 
that he was sick unto death, her resolve to set out at 
once, never wavered. After an agonizing struggle 
she compromised. She could not go by cart — that 
would be to make others work into the bargain, and 
would moreover involve a financial transaction. She 
must walk ! Sinful as it was to transgress the limit 
of two thousand yards beyond her village — the dis¬ 
tance fixed by Rabbinical law — there was no help 
for it. And of all the forms of travelling, walking 
was surely the least sinful. The Holy One, blessed 
be He, would know she did not mean to work; per¬ 
haps in His mercy He would make allowance for an 


482 


THE SABBATH-BREAKER 


old woman who had never profaned His rest-day 
before. 

And so, that very evening, having made a hasty 
meal, and lodged the precious letter in her bosom, 
the little grandmother girded up her loins to walk 
the seven-and-thirty miles. No staff took she with 
her, for to carry such came under the Talmudical 
definition of work. Neither could she carry an um¬ 
brella, though it was a season of rain. Mile after 
mile she strode briskly on, toward that pallid face 
that lay so far beyond the horizon, and yet ever 
shone before her eyes like a guiding star. “ I am 
coming, my lamb,” she muttered. “The little mother 
is on the way.” 

It was a muggy night. The sky, flushed with a 
weird, hectic glamour, seemed to hang over the earth 
like a pall. The trees that lined the roadway were 
shrouded in a draggling vapour. At midnight the 
mist blotted out the stars. But the little grandmother 
knew the road ran straight. All night she walked 
through the forest, fearless as Una, meeting neither 
man nor beast, though the wolf and the bear haunted 
its recesses, and snakes lurked in the bushes. But 
only the innocent squirrels darted across her path. 
The morning found her spent, and almost lame. 
But she walked on. Almost half the journey was 
yet to do. 

She had nothing to eat with her; food, too, was 
an illegal burden, nor could she buy any on the 


THE SABBATH-BREAKER 


483 


holy day. She said her Sabbath morning prayer 
walking, hoping God would forgive the disrespect. 
The recital gave her partial oblivion of her pains. 
As she passed through a village the dreadful rumour 
of cholera was confirmed; it gave wings to her feet 
for ten minutes, then bodily weakness was stronger 
than everything else, and she had to lean against 
the hedges on the outskirts of the village. It was 
nearly noon. A passing beggar gave her a piece 
of bread. Fortunately it was unbuttered, so she 
could eat it with only minor qualms lest it had 
touched any unclean thing. She resumed her jour¬ 
ney, but the rest had only made her feet move more 
painfully and reluctantly. She would have liked 
to bathe them in a brook, but that, too, was for¬ 
bidden. She took the letter from her bosom and 
reperused it, and whipped up her flagging strength 
with a cry of “ Courage, my lamb! the little mother 
is on the way.” Then the leaden clouds melted into 
sharp lines of rain, which beat into her face, refresh¬ 
ing her for the first few moments, but soon wetting 
her to the skin, making her sopped garments a 
heavier burden, and reducing the pathway to mud, 
that clogged still further her feeble footsteps. In 
the teeth of the wind and the driving shower she 
limped on. A fresh anxiety consumed her now — 
would she have strength to hold out? Every mo¬ 
ment her pace lessened, she was moving like a snail. 
And the slower she went the more vivid grew her 



484 


THE SABBATH-BREAKER 


prescience of what awaited her at the journey’s end. 
Would she even hear his dying word ? Perhaps — 
terrible thought! — she would only be in time to 
look upon his dead face! Mayhap that was how 
God would punish her for her desecration of the 
holy day. “Take heart, my lamb!” she wailed. 
“ Do not die yet. The little mother comes.” 

The rain stopped. The sun came out, hot and 
fierce, and dried her hands and face, then made 
them stream again with perspiration. Every inch 
won was torture now, but the brave feet toiled on. 
Bruised and swollen and crippled, they toiled on. 
There was a dying voice — very far off yet, alas ! — 
that called to her, and as she dragged herself along, 
she replied : “ I am coming, my lamb. Take heart! 
the little mother is on the way. Courage! I shall 
look upon thy face, I shall find thee alive.” 

Once a wagoner observed her plight and offered 
her a lift, but she shook her head steadfastly. The 
endless afternoon wore on — she crawled along the 
forest-way, stumbling every now and then from 
sheer faintness, and tearing her hands and face in 
the brambles of the roadside. At last the cruel sun 
waned, and reeking mists rose from the forest pools. 
And still the long miles stretched away, and still 
she plodded on, torpid from over-exhaustion, scarcely 
conscious, and taking each step only because she 
had taken the preceding. From time to time her 
lips mumbled: “Take heart, my lamb! I am com- 


THE SABBATH-BREAKER 


485 


ing.” The Sabbath was “out” ere, broken and 
bleeding, and all but swooning, the little grand¬ 
mother crawled up to her son’s inn, on the border 
of the forest. Her heart was cold with fatal fore¬ 
boding. There was none of the usual Saturday 
night litter of Polish peasantry about the door. The 
sound of many voices weirdly intoning a Hebrew 
hymn floated out into the night. A man in a caftan 
opened the door, and mechanically raised his fore¬ 
finger to bid her enter without noise. The little 
grandmother saw into the room behind. Her daugh¬ 
ter-in-law and her grandchildren were seated on the 
floor — the seat of mourners. 

“Blessed be the true Judge!” she said, and rent 
the skirt of her dress. “ When did he die ? ” 

“ Yesterday. We had to bury him hastily ere the 
Sabbath came in.” 

The little grandmother lifted up her quavering 
voice, and joined the hymn, “ I will sing a new song 
unto Thee, O God ; upon a harp of ten strings will 
I sing praises unto Thee.” 

****** 
The nurses could not understand what sudden in¬ 
flow of strength and impulse raised the mummified 
figure into a sitting posture. The little grandmother 
thrust a shrivelled claw into her peaked, shrunken 
bosom, and drew out a paper, crumpled and yellow 
as herself, covered with strange crabbed hieroglyphics, 
whose hue had long since faded. She held it close 


486 


THE SABBATH-BREAKER 


tc her bleared eyes — a beautiful light came into 
them, and illumined the million-puckered face. The 
lips moved faintly ; “ I am coming, my lamb,” she 
mumbled. “ Courage ! The little mother is on the 
way. I shall look on thy face. I shall find thee 
alive.” 


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